How to View Your Dragons
by Cke1st
Summary: You've probably seen many stories about how the canon cast of HTTYD watched themselves in the first movie. But what if their DRAGONS could watch themselves? The results will be humorous, touching, and enlightening, sometimes all at once. This story takes place between the first movie and the second one. Rated K-plus to be safe; the language is all K.
1. Chapter 1

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 1

 _A/N_  
 _You've probably seen many stories about how the canon cast of HTTYD somehow watched themselves in the first movie. But what would happen if their **dragons** could watch themselves in the first movie? The results will be humorous, touching, and enlightening, sometimes all at once. This story takes place sometime between the first movie and the second one. Rated K-plus to be safe; the language is all K._

 **o**

Snotlout was the first one to leave the hut where he and his friends had just watched the events of the recent past unfold on a flat screen in front of them. He was badly shaken; he had been positive that his contribution to the teens' victory over the huge queen dragon had been vitally important, and it hurt his enormous ego to see that he'd been wrong. The twins filed out next, wisecracking with each other to cover their nervousness at learning the facts. To no one's surprise, Fishlegs had used the exercise to learn more about dragons; he had paused the presentation several times to jot down notes and make sketches of the Red Death. Astrid was still a little pale from having to relive that terrible fall when the Red Death tried to inhale her and Stormfly. That was the closest she had ever come to meeting her own end, and her terrified scream had proven to her (and to everyone else in the little room) that she wasn't quite as ready for Valhalla as she thought she was.

Hiccup was the last to leave. He was very thoughtful; watching those events had dragged him again through the highest and lowest moments of his life. The shock of being the first Viking ever to see a Night Fury... the terror of nearly getting killed in Dragon Training, several times... the thrill, the fear, and the exultation of that first free ride on Toothless' back... the unspeakable pain of being rejected and cast out by his own father... the stunned realization that all the teens were looking to him, Hiccup, for guidance on how to rescue their tribe... the black pool of loss when he realized that his foot was gone forever... it was all there for him, almost as vivid as going through it the first time. The strange man who controlled the flat panel had offered to let him watch it again. "Thanks, but no thanks," Hiccup had told him. "Living it once was enough; watching it again might have been too much. Three times... sorry, but no."

Toothless picked up on his rider's mood immediately. He had been resting outside the newly-built, odd-looking hut where the teens had been sitting for the past hour and a half, attracted by the sound of his rider's voice and the sounds of dragon voices, including some that sounded very much like his own. Now his human friend was in an unusually somber mood, and Toothless wanted to know why. He stuck his huge head into the doorway of the hut. He heard the sounds of a male human singing about "one, two and three," whatever that meant, and saw the strange man standing next to a broad, flat panel that was showing simplistic images of various dragons, with runes of some kind flashing over them.

"Oh, hi there, big fellow," the strange man said casually. He was obviously unafraid of dragons, even scary-looking black ones who suddenly stuck their heads into his hut. "I suppose you want to see the movie, too? Well, we know that Night Furies are intelligent and curious, so I guess you could get something out of watching it." He touched a button on a small, thin black box, and the images and sounds stopped. "But you're too big to fit into this hut, I'm afraid. That's okay, though - the hut is made in sections so I can move it around easily. I'll just take down the front wall." He pulled some shiny bolts out of sockets along the edges of one wall of the hut, and that wall folded up and fell down flat. Toothless jumped back, startled.

His nervousness changed to curiosity the moment the man touched another button on the thin black box. The screen showed a human child sitting on the moon, apparently trying to catch fish. For just a moment, Toothless saw a black shadow against the stars that could only be a Night Fury. What was going on here? Could he figure it out by himself? The other dragons needed to know about this! He let out a honking roar, which startled the man; he hit another button and the image on the screen froze. "What was that about?" he asked the dragon, not really expecting an answer.

But he got his answer in about two minutes, when Toothless was joined by Stormfly, Meatlug, Hookfang, Barf and Belch, along with Sizzle, the yellow Terrible Terror who had once been one of the unwilling subjects of Dragon Training. "Oh, I get it!" the man smiled. "You want to watch the movie with your friends! Okay, no problem. But maybe I ought to fix the language settings so you can understand what the humans are saying." He picked up the black box and hit some buttons, talking to himself as he went. "Main Menu... Settings... page two... oh, there it is! Language. Let's see." The current setting said "Old Norse." He scrolled through the other options as he looked for one particular language. "English... Spanish... French... Russian... Chinese... Hebrew... Sindarin... Klingonese... Dog... Llama... Mole Rat, naked... Mole Rat, fully clothed... Dragon! Of course, they had to put it at the very end!" He hit more buttons and the images began moving again. "I've also enabled the voice controls so you can stop and start the movie. Now I'll go for a walk in the woods, so you can enjoy the show without me. I'll be back in about two hours. Then I'll have to pack up and go; I've got an evening appointment to show 'Frozen' to Queen Elsa and Princess Anna of Arendelle." He strolled away and was soon out of sight. Of course, the dragons understood nothing of what he said.

"What's going on here?" Stormfly asked.

"There's something in this hut that really shook up my rider," Toothless answered. "Your rider was very quiet when she came out of here as well. This man doesn't look like a Viking, he doesn't sound like a Viking, and he doesn't smell like a Viking; that makes him an intruder. I want to know what he did to my rider, and I think we all ought to know what he's up to. It might be important."

"What's the flat thing with the moving pictures?" Hookfang demanded suspiciously.

"I don't know," the Night Fury admitted. "That's one of the things I hope to find out. But I know it was making sounds like my rider's voice and your riders' voices, and I think I heard our own voices here and there as well. This is very strange and unusual, and I want to get to the bottom of it."

"Your rider comes up with strange and unusual stuff all the time, doesn't he?" Meatlug asked.

"Yes, but this isn't from my rider," Toothless said firmly. "If it was one of his crazy inventions, then it wouldn't have shaken him up so badly. Hey, look at the panel! That's a picture of this island!" They all stared at the moving images on the flat panel. Soft background music played as the image of the island grew closer.

Toothless jumped when he heard Hiccup say, "This is Berk. It's twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death. It's located solidly on the Meridian of Misery."

"I can understand him!" the black dragon blurted out. "It's my rider's voice, but he's speaking perfect dragon language!"

"You're right - this is really strange," Stormfly nodded. "For the first time ever, we can really understand what a human is saying."

"And all he's doing is complaining about his own nest!" Barf threw in.

"If he hates it that much, then why doesn't he move somewhere else?" Belch added.

"Vikings," Sizzle said dismissively. "Stubbornness issues."

"Maybe he _can't_ leave," Meatlug suggested. "After all, his father is the Alpha of this nest. Maybe they won't let him go."

"But who ever heard of a dragon complaining about his own nest?" Hookfang wondered.

"Your rider is not a dragon," Stormfly said.

"Yes, I noticed that, too," Toothless said drily. "Let's see what happens next." They watched as the image changed to the houses and shops of Berk. Hiccup's voice went on, "...but every single building is new."

"We had something to do with that!" Hookfang boasted.

"But we don't do that stuff anymore!" Meatlug protested. "The humans are our friends! We aren't supposed to flame their little wooden caves anymore."

"Well, it was a lot of fun while it lasted," the bigger dragon muttered.

"...The only problems are the pests," Hiccup continued. The screen showed two sheep eating grass, with others in the background.

"Those white fluffy things are pests?" Belch asked. "I didn't know that!"

"I guess they're bad because they eat all the grass, and the Vikings need that grass for something else," Barf suggested.

"Maybe we should do the humans a favor and get rid of all of those pests," Belch concluded. "It would give us something fun and different to do."

"Yeah!" Barf exclaimed. "We could pick them all up and drop them in the water, one at a time! We'll play a game to see who can make the biggest splash!"

"Hold on, you two," Stormfly cut in. "He's still talking."

"...you see, most places have mice or mosquitoes. We have... dragons!"

Hookfang was indignant. "Oh, so _we're_ the pests?! I resent that!"

Stormfly didn't like the idea, either. "I thought we were special to our humans! If we're nothing but pests here, then maybe we should go somewhere else."

"No, wait!" Toothless cut in urgently. "I think I know what's happening here. Did you see how a dragon carried off that sheep, and then another dragon flamed my rider's house? Like Meatlug said, we don't do that stuff anymore. Somehow, this flat panel is showing us scenes from the past. We're seeing things that we've already done."

"Well, what good is that?" Hookfang demanded. "If I've already done something, then what's the point in seeing myself do it again? Aside from seeing how awesome I am from other people's point of view, of course."

"Because we're seeing these things the way my rider saw them," the Night Fury answered. "We can understand what the Vikings are saying, we can hear them saying things that we never could hear before... this could be a huge opportunity to learn more about humans in general, and our own humans in particular! We need to pay attention." He shifted his position, and almost stepped on Sizzle by accident.

"Hey, watch it, you big ox!" Sizzle exclaimed as he jumped out of the way. "Be careful where you put your paws!"

The moving images on the panel froze.

"The pictures stopped!" Meatlug complained. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything! He said, 'Be careful where you put your paws,' and the pictures stopped," Toothless mused. "What could that mean?"

"Who cares!" Sizzle burst out. "I don't have a pet human like you, so why should I care about those pictures? I want to go out and play!"

The images resumed moving.

"Did the strange man do anything to make the pictures stop and start?" Stormfly asked.

"No, he's nowhere near here, or one of us could smell him," Toothless said. "It must have something to do with what we were saying. Paws!" The pictures stopped. "Play!" They started again. "Hey, Sizzle, nice work! You figured out how we can control the pictures."

"Thanks," Sizzle answered. "But what do our paws and playing have to do with controlling those pictures?"

"With humans, who knows?" Barf said, and both shoulders of the two-headed dragon shrugged.

Hiccup's voice continued, "Most people would leave. Not us. We're Vikings. We have stubbornness issues."

"Told you so," smirked Sizzle. They winced as they watched a Viking holding onto a Gronckle with one hand and repeatedly beating him with a hammer with the other hand, until the dragon was able to throw him off.

"My name's Hiccup," his voice said. All the dragons except Toothless burst out laughing.

"His name is Hiccup?" Stormfly cackled. "So _that's_ what his name means!" She hiccuped loudly on purpose. "Will he come when I call him?"

"What kind of tacky culture _is_ this?" Meatlug giggled. "What kind of _idiot_ would give someone a name that's a _body noise?"_

"No comment," muttered Belch.

They watched Hiccup make his way into the town, suffering near-miss after near-miss as the bigger Vikings ran around aimlessly. When Stoick appeared and nearly threw Hiccup across the path, the dragons hissed and snarled in displeasure. "They say that when he was a baby, he popped a dragon's head clean off its shoulders. Do I believe it? Yes, I do."

"It must have been a very small dragon," Meatlug said.

"She was a distant cousin of mine," Sizzle said softly. "How would the humans like it if we started popping _their_ heads clean off _their_ shoulders and bragging about it?"

Stormfly shook her head. "I keep telling you, we don't do that stuff anymore! But speaking of cousins, why did Stoick ruin a perfectly good cart, just to throw it in the air and stun my cousin for a few seconds? It didn't even hurt her for long! What a waste."

"Paws!" Toothless called; the pictures stopped. "The whole war was a waste, Stormfly. Every war is a waste of lives, time, effort, resources, and anything else that's worth having."

"Then why do people keep starting wars all the time?" Hookfang wondered.

"Because they think they can win," Toothless answered. "Some wars have winners and losers, and some just have a bunch of losers, but even the winners usually lose more than they gain. Our war with the humans was an example of a war with no winners. We lost our friends and family members by the dozen; the humans lost their food, their buildings, and a few friends and family members of their own; and nobody ever really won. It was all the Queen's fault for making us raid them!" They all coughed and hit the ground with their tails, which was the dragon equivalent of spitting on the ground when they heard the name of someone they detested.

"We could talk about that forever," Meatlug decided, "but we're here to watch the pictures, right?"

"Right," Toothless nodded, and faced the flat panel. "Play!" The images began moving again. They watched as the Vikings deposited a double armful of bent weapons in the forge for Hiccup and Gobber to fix.

"Look at that mangled sword!" Hookfang chuckled. "Those Vikings never did come up with a metal weapon that wouldn't bend when it hit one of us."

"Except they kept hitting us," Stormfly objected, "and hitting us, and _hitting_ us! When they ruined one weapon, they switched to another one. They just wouldn't stop!"

"Funny, I don't remember much of that," Hookfang reflected.

"That's because, once they captured you for their dragon training, they saved you for the end!" Meatlug reminded him. "The rest of us had to keep fighting them over and over again. Stormfly is right; they were relentless. If it wasn't for our tough scales, they would have killed every last one of us."

"But we weren't defenseless," Hookfang shot back as they watched another huge dragon set a Viking building's roof on fire. "Yeah, that's how to do it! Burn, baby, burn!"

"Hookfang, we don't do that stuff anymore! Remember?" Stormfly reminded him.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot," Hookfang admitted. "I guess I got caught up in the moving pictures. But is it wrong to admire a job well done?"

"We shouldn't take any pleasure in it," Toothless said. "Not anymore. I blew up more stuff than any of you, but I don't feel good about it now. It was all a colossal mess of misunderstandings! Neither side had any quarrel with the other. If we could have left each other alone, then I think we would have, and there would have been no war."

"I'm not convinced of that," Sizzle retorted. "Those humans love to fight, just for the sake of fighting! I think they would have hunted us and killed us for sport if they didn't have to fight us and kill us to protect their food supply."

"They aren't hunting us now," Toothless said. "Their food supply is secure; in fact, some of us are helping them catch more fish than ever before. But we haven't become sport to them."

"Except for Dragon Racing," Stormfly reminded him, "and we're _part_ of the sport when that happens!"

"Huh. Maybe you're right," the little dragon admitted.

Toothless looked smug. "Of course I'm right! I'm a Night Fury! Let's watch the pictures some more." They saw the other teens carrying barrels of water to fight the fires that the dragons were starting, as Hiccup named them, "Oh, there's Snotlout..."

"Hey! That's _my_ rider!" Hookfang nearly shouted. "He's in the pictures, too!"

"...Fishlegs..." Hiccup went on.

"There he is!" Meatlug exclaimed. "Isn't he handsome?"

"Another stupid Viking name?" Hookfang complained. "Fish don't _have_ legs!"

"Don't insult my rider," Meatlug warned him.

Hookfang smirked. "What are you going to do about it? Make an ugly face at me? Oh, but you always do that!"

"No," the Gronckle growled, "I'll rub up against you while you're asleep, so you'll get Gronckle-bumps all over you when you wake up!" Hookfang edged away from her. Young dragons often teased each other about Gronckle-bumps being contagious; adults knew that the stories weren't true, but Hookfang didn't want to take any chances.

"...the twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut..."

"They're disagreeing already," Barf commented as they fought over the water pail.

"Nothing changes," Belch nodded.

"and... Astrid!"

"Why was he so obsessed with that female?" Barf asked. "She's so thin! Is she malnourished?"

"And she wanted nothing to do with him!" Belch added.

"Human courtship makes no sense," Barf nodded. "They don't do things like us at all. If a male dragon approaches a female and asks to mate with her, and she refuses, he'll find someone else who looks just like her. No heartache, no confusion, no fights... well, not many... and everybody finds a mate, eventually. Why can't the humans do it our way? They'd be so much happier!"

"I guess it's because they're humans and not dragons," Meatlug suggested.

"But our way is so much _better!"_ Barf protested.

"All I know," Toothless cut in, "is that they've been doing it their way for thousands of years, and they seem to be getting more numerous every year, so whatever they're doing, it works." They turned back to the screen just in time to see a Viking hurl a bola and bring down a Gronckle.

"I always hated those things," Stormfly muttered.

"Are there any Viking weapons that you _don't_ hate?" Sizzle asked.

"The ones that bounce off of me were bad enough," the blue dragon went on. "But the ones that would keep me from flying? Those are the worst! A downed dragon is a dead dragon, and I didn't want to be dead." A moment later, Hiccup touched some kind of human machine that threw a bola straight into another Viking's head.

"Why did he do that?" Hookfang wondered.

"He said it was a mild calibration issue," Toothless answered.

Sizzle sometimes had trouble with long words. "Which means... what?"

"I think it means, 'Oops,' " Toothless tried to explain.

Hiccup began sharpening a sword as he said, "One day, I'll get out there. Because killing a dragon is everything around here!"

Meatlug was taken aback. "Your human friend really thinks that way?"

"He used to," Toothless said, "but he changed his mind. He's perfectly sane now."

They watched as Stormfly's relatives made off with some of the tribe's sheep. "A Nadder head is sure to get me at least noticed."

Stormfly stomped her foot angrily. "So that's all I'm good for, in Hiccup's mind? To cut my head off so the other Vikings would notice him?"

Hookfang smirked. "What else could they do with your head? At least it wouldn't gather dust that way."

Hiccup went on, "Gronckles are tough. Taking down one of those would definitely get me a girlfriend."

"Hey, Meatlug," Hookfang grinned, "does that sound like a good trade? Your life in exchange for his love life?"

"That is totally tasteless," Meatlug grimaced.

"A Zippleback? Exotic. Two heads, twice the status," Hiccup said.

"What does that mean?" Barf asked. "What the heck is a Zippleback? Why do they call us that?"

"I think it's because of the way you walk," Toothless suggested. "When you press your necks together, your neck spines interlock so they look like a zipper. Zipperback, Zippleback... they're kind of close."

"So what's a zipper?" Belch asked.

"Umm... it's a human clothing fastener that hasn't been invented yet," Toothless said lamely.

Hiccup went on. "And then there's the Monstrous Nightmare. Only the best Vikings go after those. They have this nasty habit of setting themselves on fire."

 _"What_ did he call me?" Hookfang demanded angrily. "A _Monstrous_ Nightmare? Something horrible, then something even more horrible? What kind of a name is that?"

"What kind of a name did you expect from someone named Hiccup?" Sizzle asked.

"Well, they didn't know that we call you Greater Fire-Masters," Toothless tried to explain, "so they had to make something up. I mean, you were always trying to be the most destructive force in this area, so they gave you a name that fit. Surely you can see the logic in that!"

"I can't see it, and don't call me Shirley, and don't call me a Monstrous Nightmare, either! I can't wait to see what he calls _you_ in his own language!" They waited. They didn't have to wait long.

"But the ultimate prize is the dragon that no one's ever seen. We call it the..." "Night Fury!" "Get down!" BOOM! The Viking catapult was torn apart with one shot.

"Night Fury," Meatlug nodded. "It fits."

"I remember taking that shot," Toothless said absently. "I was aiming for the crew, but I hit the catapult instead. It worked out the same; the catapult was out of the battle; but it wasn't like me to have even a near-miss like that. I think I was having an off night."

"This thing never steals food, never shows itself, and..." BOOM! "...never misses."

"Well, we won't tell Hiccup that you had a near-miss," Stormfly said. Toothless wasn't sure if she was comforting him or mocking him. They watched as Hiccup disobeyed his master's clear command and ran across the village with his invention.

"Is he going to have another mild calibration issue?" Meatlug asked.

"We should be so lucky," Hookfang muttered. Hiccup set up his contraption, aimed at the night sky... and Toothless' mouth dropped open in shock as he watched his human friend shoot him down.


	2. Chapter 2

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 2

The other dragons heard Toothless building up a firebolt; he obviously meant to blast the flat panel into tiny bits. "Paws!" Meatlug shouted desperately. The action on the panel froze, which reminded Toothless that he was watching images from the past, not something real. He jerked his head sideways and launched his firebolt into the sky; it burst harmlessly a few seconds later. But the Night Fury's rage wasn't even close to pacified.

 _"Hiccup_ did that to me?" he demanded angrily. _"He's_ the reason I can't fly without help? _He's_ the one who tore my tail fin off? I thought he was my friend!"

"He _is_ your friend!" Stormfly tried to reassure him. "Think for a moment! Everything he's ever done for you -"

"...doesn't come _close_ to what he did to me that night!" Toothless raged. "He mutilated me! He took my flight away from me! I could _kill_ him for that!"

"Just like you were trying to kill all those other Vikings that night," Barf suggested.

"Well, of course I was!" the Night Fury exclaimed. "Was there something wrong with that? After all, we were in the middle of a war. That means we were trying to kill each other, right?"

"Exactly," Meatlug said. "And that's what Hiccup was trying to do to you, just like you were trying to do it to his friends. It wasn't anything personal."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better about losing my tail?" Toothless countered. "I _need_ my tail, probably more than any other kind of dragon! What kind of a friend would do such a thing?"

"When he did it," Stormfly said, "he wasn't trying to be your friend, and you weren't trying to be his friend, either. Like you said, it was in the middle of a war. When did that war end?"

Toothless thought for a moment. "I suppose it ended when the queen dragon died, and the rest of us realized that we didn't have any reason to fight each other anymore."

"Was that when Hiccup started trying to be your friend?" Stormfly pressed him.

"No, of course not!" the Night Fury answered. "He started being friendly long before the queen died. In fact, it was..." His voice trailed away, as did much of his anger.

"It was while we were all still in the middle of that war," the blue Nadder finished. "Right?"

"Right," Toothless admitted.

Meatlug had figured out where Stormfly was going with this. "So he started being friendly to you when he was supposed to be killing you. I'm sure the other Vikings would have killed _him_ if they found out about it, but he did it anyway. That sounds like a true friend to me. How about you?"

Toothless looked behind him. "But... my tail... _he_ did that to me?"

"And he's spent the rest of his days trying to make it right," Stormfly reminded him. "I heard that he even made you a replacement tail so you could fly without him. Isn't that the kind of thing a friend would do?"

"Not to mention, he risked his life to help you beat that Whispering Death," Hookfang added.

"And he almost got killed while proving that the lightning strikes on the town weren't your fault," Sizzle chimed in.

"But how could he _do_ this to me?" the Night Fury asked plaintively.

"Because he didn't know any better, and because he didn't know _you,"_ Meatlug explained. "To him, you were just a faceless destroyer who was wrecking his town's defenses. I suspect that everything changed the first time he looked you in the eye. At some point, you became an individual to him, and that made all the difference."

"But what was the big deal if I took out a few catapults?" Toothless wondered. "The Vikings only used them against dragons, right? So why did Hiccup try so hard to protect them at my expense? Me shooting them was self-defense, in a way."

"My fast-flying friend, I'm afraid you're mistaken there," Hookfang retorted, somewhat haughtily. "I know for a fact that the Vikings used those catapults to protect themselves against raids from other human tribes, too. Yes, it was self-defense when you took them out, but you left their village wide-open to attacks from the other humans, as well as attacks from us. When you shot those heavy weapons, you hit them where it hurts; you took out their best way to protect themselves. So of course Hiccup reacted strongly! You shooting their catapults was like... was like..." He tried to come up with a good simile.

Meatlug beat him to it. "It was like _them_ shooting _you_ down!"

Toothless considered that for a moment. "Okay, I guess that makes sense, from their point of view. But why didn't Hiccup ever admit that he's the one who ruined my tail? Why didn't he apologize?"

"Maybe it's because he doesn't speak our language?" Sizzle suggested.

"Maybe it's because he feels really bad about it now?" Stormfly added.

Meatlug nodded firmly. "Stormfly nailed it. That has to be the reason. Again, look at all the work he's put into making your artificial tail and flying gear. That's not just for his benefit, even though he obviously loves flying with you. He's trying to right an old wrong, the best way he can, because he knows he's responsible for what he did to you. He may even still feel guilty about it."

"Well, he _should_ feel guilty!" Toothless burst out. Then he shook his head. "No, I don't want him to feel guilty. He's my friend; I don't wish anything bad on him. Oh, this is complicated!"

"Maybe we should just watch the pictures," Hookfang suggested, "and figure out all the philosophical stuff later."

After a second, Toothless nodded. "That's good advice. Play!" He still cringed as he watched Hiccup rejoicing. "I hit it? Yes, I hit it! Did anybody see that?"

The Nightmare who had attacked Stoick's catapult had climbed up the cliff and stomped Hiccup's bola-thrower into matchwood. "My buddy gave you some payback there, Toothless," Hookfang grinned. "Hiccup never got to shoot a bola at anybody else again!"

"Paws!" Sizzle called. "I think we're about to get thoughtful again."

"That Nightmare almost killed Hiccup next," Stormfly observed. "What would have happened if he'd done it?"

"I'd be dead, too," Toothless said without hesitation. "If Hiccup hadn't lived to untie me from his own bola, then I would have lay in that forest, tied up and helpless, until I starved to death. The rest of you would still be locked up in Dragon Training cells, and all the other dragons would still be at war with the humans. Hookfang, I am very, very glad that your relative didn't do his job that night."

"That makes me wonder," Meatlug said. "How many other humans might have changed the course of our history, but they never got the chance because we killed them first? Maybe that stupid war could have ended generations ago if we'd given the humans a chance."

"But it's like we said earlier," Stormfly objected. "We didn't know, just like the humans didn't know. It took a dragon and a human getting together to figure out why we were fighting, and how to stop. It wasn't just any dragon and any human, either. Any other dragon would have killed Hiccup, just like that Nightmare tried to do; and any other human would have killed Toothless, just like Hiccup initially tried to do. It was that one-in-a-million combination of the two of you that made the difference."

They all nodded. There was no disputing her words. After a few seconds, Meatlug said, "Play!" They watched Hiccup running in panic and hiding from the Nightmare, who was then chased away by Stoick, who attacked the much bigger dragon with nothing but his fists and his feet.

"Hookfang," Stormfly said, "I've got nothing against you and your kind, but that was one really wimpy dragon! He could have killed that Viking Alpha just by sitting on him, never mind using his claws and his teeth, and yet he let an unarmed Viking beat him up and scare him away! He's lucky the Queen didn't eat him when she found out about it."

"She docked him an hour's fish," Hookfang admitted. "But it wasn't really his fault. He just took some solid whacks in the head from the Viking Alpha's war hammer a few minutes ago, when he attacked that catapult. He was still a little woozy, and he didn't have his 'A' game on. It _was_ embarrassing to watch, though." Stoick dragged his son through the village.

"He's scolding Hiccup for trying to do what every other Viking does!" Hookfang realized.

"It wasn't the trying that was the problem," Meatlug said. "It was the failing."

"Well, I, for one, am glad that he failed," Barf replied.

"Where would we be if he had succeeded?" Belch added.

"Still at war," Toothless said sadly as he watched Hiccup endure his friends' taunts and Gobber's brutal honesty.

"Look, the point is," Gobber said, "stop trying to be something you're not."

"I just want to be one of you guys!" Hiccup almost whined.

"But if he couldn't be a Viking," Toothless said to the panel, "then what else could he be?"

"I suppose he had to find his own path," Meatlug suggested.

"The other Vikings didn't make it easy for him," Sizzle said.

"Finding your own path is never easy, no matter who or what you are," Stormfly decided. "Only the strong and the brave can resist the pressure to conform, and still have strength left over to find out who you should be and how to get there from where you are."

"Are you calling Hiccup strong?" Hookfang scoffed.

"Not all strength can be seen with the eye," Toothless reminded him. "I happen to know that some dragons are less than half your size, and yet they can take out a human catapult with one shot."

"And some dragons are as big as you are, Hookfang," Meatlug teased him, "and yet they can't take out one unarmed human!"

"Oh, give it a rest!" Hookfang protested. "I told you, it wasn't his fault! Let's watch the pictures. Oh, look, that's the inside of their big meeting hall! I always wondered what that looked like." They winced as they noticed the hall's main decoration, a bronze dragon hanging over the fire pit with a sword plunged through it.

They watched as Stoick raged, "If we find the nest and destroy it, the dragons will leave! They'll find another home!"

"Oh, sure, that always works!" Stormfly mocked. "We'd find another home, all right, but it would be as close to the old one as we could arrange! Why would we move far away from our best source of food?"

"That new nest would have to be big enough for the Queen to live there," Meatlug reminded her. "There aren't many places like that. We might have to move a long distance away."

"Or," Belch reminded them all, "we might just move back into our old nest after the Vikings left. Did they think they could destroy a whole cave?"

"Those Vikings didn't know any of that!" Stormfly shot back. "Their entire strategy was based on faulty thinking and false assumptions. It's no wonder they could never beat us!"

"Yes," Toothless nodded, "nothing changed until someone started thinking differently."

Stoick called for volunteers to search for the nest, and got none. "All right. Those who stay will look after Hiccup." Everyone suddenly volunteered.

"They really hated Hiccup, didn't they?" Barf said.

"They didn't understand him," Belch explained.

"Just like they didn't understand us, and we didn't understand them," Toothless went on. "From what I've seen, when humans don't understand something, they tend to either hate it or fear it."

"Or both," Stormfly added. "That's how they related to us. Fear _and_ hatred."

Meatlug counted by tapping her claws on the ground as she recited, "Fear, hatred, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the chief..."

"Oh, stop reciting all their negative traits!" Toothless burst out. "I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!"

"The what?" Hookfang asked.

"Never mind," Toothless said firmly. They resumed watching the moving pictures; they listened as Stoick confided his qualms about Hiccup to Gobber.

"From the time he could crawl, he's been... _different!"_

"He says that as though it was something bad," Meatlug observed.

"Why are humans so obsessed with conformity?" Stormfly wondered. "We dragons are very different from each other, but we all get along just fine, as long as it isn't mating season. Why do they feel so threatened if one of them isn't like all the others? You'd think they would value diversity, but in reality, they try to stamp it out wherever it appears, and pretend that everybody is just like everybody else."

The Viking chief went on, "He doesn't listen, he has the attention span of a sparrow..."

"They say that about me," Sizzle objected, "and I think _I_ turned out okay!"

"Trolls exist!" Gobber burst out. "They steal your socks... but only the left ones. What's with that?"

"Wow, that's a hard one. Gee, let me think," Meatlug snorted derisively. "Let's see. Could it be because he doesn't have a foot on his right leg anymore, so every sock he owns is a left one?"

"Oh, don't be so logical!" Stormfly chuckled. "He's bound to figure it out someday."

"It taught me what a Viking could do, Gobber!" the chief was exclaiming. "He could crush mountains, level forests, tame seas!"

"In other words," Toothless commented, "he could destroy the world and everything in it."

"Except a dragons' nest!" Sizzle chimed in.

"Did you ever stop to think," Hookfang said, "that maybe the only thing that was holding them back was their war against us? Now that we're at peace with them, they can turn all their time and energy into destroying everything else. Did we do a good thing by ending the war? Would the rest of the world be better off if we were still keeping them busy by stealing their food and burning their buildings every few weeks?"

"I wouldn't worry about that too much," Meatlug said. "Now that they're at peace with us, they're spending a lot of their time and energy fighting each other instead."

"Besides," Barf commented, "the idea of humans wrecking their own world is ridiculous! No one would be _that_ stupid!"

"Would they?" Belch asked.

The scene changed. Hiccup was walking through the forest, making X marks in the little book he carried.

"What's he doing?" Belch asked.

"I think he was looking all over the island for me," Toothless answered. "He put the X marks on that picture of the island to show the places he'd already searched, so he wouldn't look for me in the same place twice."

"Oh," Belch said. "I thought the 'X' marks showed where he'd buried some treasure."

"That's quite clever," Stormfly nodded. "The Vikings called him all kinds of names, but they never called him stupid."

"Huh?" Barf exclaimed; he'd gotten distracted by the moving pictures.

"I said the Vikings never called Hiccup stupid," the Nadder repeated.

"Oh," Barf said, relieved. "I heard the word 'stupid' and I thought you were talking about me."

"No comment," Stormfly said. They watched Hiccup slap a tree branch, and then cry out in pain as the branch snapped back and hit him in the face.

"Well, maybe the Vikings never saw him do stuff like that," Hookfang grinned. "Now _that_ was stupid!"

"It could have happened to anyone," Toothless tried to explain.

"Did it ever happen to you?" Hookfang asked pointedly.

"Actually, I ran face-first into that very tree when I crash-landed," Toothless said. "So he and I have that in common."

Hiccup followed the trench that Toothless' crash-landing had dug in the ground, then nearly panicked when he saw the black dragon on the ground in front of him.

"And, just like that, he broke his own rule," Barf said. "He said no one ever saw a Night Fury before! What's he looking at now, chopped liver?"

"Almost," Toothless said ruefully. "That landing really messed me up. If it wasn't for hard dragon scales, I would have been hamburger."

Hiccup searched himself and pulled out a small belt knife, which he held in front of himself like a sword.

"Behold the valiant Viking warrior and his deadly weapon!" Hookfang hooted. "It's, like, the size of my -"

"Shut up!" Meatlug hissed. "I have a feeling this is going to be a very emotional scene for Toothless." They watched as Hiccup overcame his initial fear as he realized that the Night Fury was tied up and helpless.

"I have brought down this mighty beast!" he crowed.

Toothless sighed sadly. "He really _did_ do it to me. I was hoping we were all wrong. I hate feeling like I'm grounded because of him."

"You're not grounded!" Stormfly exclaimed. "In fact, you can fly because of him!" Then the Night Fury in the pictures stirred, and Hiccup nearly panicked again.

"You called him a valiant Viking warrior?" Toothless said to Hookfang. "If he really was a valiant Viking warrior, then I'd be dead. So I'm glad you're wrong."

They watched in complete silence as Hiccup tried to steel himself and kill the dragon. They saw the fear in Toothless' eyes. They knew exactly how this scene would have played out if it had been any Viking other than Hiccup. They saw the human look into Toothless' eyes; they saw him try once, twice to bring down his blade... and finally give up trying. Sizzle let out the breath he was holding.

"Why didn't he kill you?" Meatlug whispered.

"To this day, I don't know," Toothless answered, very quietly. "Everyone knows that a Viking will always, _always_ go for the kill." They saw Hiccup start to walk away, saw him realize that the dragon would die if he left him tied up, saw him turn and cut away the ropes... and Toothless broke free.

He pinned Hiccup to a rock with his paw, glared at him for a few seconds with eyes that were no longer fearful, and then roared, "You son of a half-troll, rat-eating munge-bucket! You don't know who you're dealing with! I'll show you the same mercy you just showed me because I'm glad to be still alive, but if I _ever_ see your ugly pink face again, I'll ram my paw down your throat, grab your innards, and turn you inside-out!" Then he turned and flapped awkwardly away, striking several rocks and trees as he flew.

"Wow," Meatlug said. "Does Hiccup know you said that to him?"

"To him, it was nothing more than an incoherent roar," Toothless replied. "I think."

"You hope!" Hookfang retorted. "You were complaining about him treating you badly when he's your friend, but it sounds like that accusation could go both ways."

"They weren't friends yet, in case you didn't notice," Stormfly corrected him. "That scene was just an unscheduled truce in a war that was still raging. Nothing would have changed if Hiccup hadn't... Toothless, what did Hiccup do to change things?"

"I think we're going to see that part soon," Toothless replied. "You seeing it will be easier than me explaining it. Let's keep watching the pictures."


	3. Chapter 3

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 3

The dragons of Berk were watching the events of the recent past unfold before their eyes, projected somehow onto a flat panel in front of them. They were learning about the events that had transformed their existence as seen by the humans, and by Hiccup in particular. They saw Hiccup sneak into his house after his first encounter with the Night Fury and attempt to avoid drawing his father's attention. He failed. Stoick called him over.

"It would be nice if we could see things from my rider's point of view for a change," Hookfang complained. "Does it have to be all Hiccup, Hiccup, and Hiccup?"

"Considering that your rider still hated dragons as much as any other Viking," Meatlug answered, "his point of view wouldn't tell us much. If we want to find out how our world changed, then we need to focus on the one who changed it." She stopped as Hiccup and Stoick spoke at the same time; the only intelligible word was "dragons" at the end.

"It's still all about us," Stormfly observed. "What did they say?"

"You got your wish," Stoick said reluctantly. "Dragon Training. You start in the morning."

"What's dragon training?" Sizzle wondered. "Is that where they learn how to recognize the different kinds of dragons?"

"Uhh, not exactly," Stormfly said, and shuddered at a bad memory.

Hiccup was talking. "...but do we have enough bread-making Vikings, or...?"

"Bread-making Vikings?" Hookfang exclaimed. "You mean Vikings eat something that isn't meat? How can they be such vicious fighters if they aren't carnivores?"

"They eat plenty of meat," Toothless answered. "Maybe there's a reason they don't have many bread-making Vikings; maybe they just don't eat much bread."

"So, if they had more bread-making Vikings, then they'd be more peaceful?" Meatlug wondered.

"No, they would just chew their bread angrily," Barf suggested.

"You'll need this," Stoick said, and half-handed, half-tossed a fancy axe to his son. The dragons hissed in displeasure.

"I never liked the look of that weapon at all," Stormfly decided. "It doesn't look like it would bend if it hit me. I took it out the first chance I got, and I'm not sorry. It looks painful."

"It looks very hurty," Meatlug nodded. "But he's having trouble holding it."

"Maybe he should 'axe' his father for help!" Sizzle giggled. Barf and Belch rolled their eyes.

The scene changed; Stoick closed a door, and Gobber opened another one. "Welcome to Dragon Training!"

Sizzle's eyes went wide as he recognized the arena where he'd been imprisoned for over a year. _"That's_ Dragon Training? They're going to show Hiccup how to beat us up?"

"That was their plan," Stormfly answered.

"Even though he knew more about dragons than the rest of them put together?" the Terror went on.

"Not at this point, he didn't," Meatlug said. "Trust me; I was the first one to face that bunch, and Hiccup was no threat. Not unless I tripped over him or something."

"I hope I get some serious burns!" Tuffnut grinned as he looked around the ring.

"I'm hoping for some mauling," his sister agreed. "Like on my shoulder or lower back."

"Are they out of their minds?" Meatlug burst out.

"Yes!" Barf and Belch chorused.

"Yeah," Astrid said, as though agreeing with the dragons. "It's only fun if you get a scar out of it."

"Don't Vikings feel pain?" Hookfang asked.

"I think they feel it even more than we do," Toothless explained. "But that bunch are trying to impress each other with how brave they are, so they're saying things that they don't really mean. Remember how Tuffnut ran away in a screaming panic as soon as any of you got a tooth on him? Yeah, you'd give him some serious burns... if you could catch him first!" The Zippleback's heads both laughed at that thought.

"Let's get started!" Gobber shouted. "The recruit who does best will win the honor of killing his first dragon in front of the entire village."

"Does that mean they weren't supposed to kill us while they were getting the training?" Meatlug asked.

"Good point," Hookfang nodded. "If one of them killed one of us before they were supposed to, would that ruin everything? Would they get thrown out of the training because they killed a dragon too soon?"

"I guess we'll never know," Stormfly said philosophically. "None of them ever came close to killing any of us, except for Astrid once or twice, and they don't do Dragon Training like that anymore. Which of us did they fight first?"

"Me, I think," Meatlug answered.

Gobber was introducing the dragon types behind the heavy doors. "The Deadly Nadder!"

"Speed eight," Fishlegs recited. "Armor sixteen."

"The Hideous Zippleback!"

"Plus-eleven stealth times two."

"Paws!" Barf shouted. "What did he mean, the 'Hideous' Zippleback? Are we that much worse-looking than the rest of you? Why can't we be the Deadly Zippleback, like Stormfly is a Deadly Nadder?"

"Maybe you're not deadly enough," Hookfang suggested.

"Maybe they just gave you that name to be mean," Stormfly said. "After all, we know they gave a pretty rotten name to Hookfang and his relatives, and they gave Hiccup a name that wasn't so nice, either."

"But they gave you a cool-sounding name!" Belch protested. "How come you got lucky with the names, and the rest of us got names that stink?"

"It's probably because I'm so pretty," Stormfly said, tossing her head. Hookfang and Toothless snorted. Meatlug called, "Play!"

"The Monstrous Nightmare," Gobber went on.

"Firepower fifteen!"

"Whoa!" Hookfang burst out. "Stormfly had armor sixteen! Are you trying to tell me that she has more armor than I have firepower? No way!"

"Armor sixteen? Sixteen of what?" Belch wondered.

"Firepower fifteen? Fifteen of what?" Barf echoed. "Does that mean you can cook fifteen fish at once?"

"I honestly have no idea," Toothless admitted. "Let's keep watching and see if we can learn anything else."

"The Terrible Terror!"

"Attack eight! Venom twelve!"

"Hey, I got a bad name, too!" Sizzle shouted. "They think I'm terrible! They hate me just as much as they hate you big guys!"

"That's not much to be proud of," Hookfang growled.

"I'll take what I can get," the Terror shot back. "Being terrible is better than being a nobody."

"And... the Gronckle!" Gobber pulled a lever, the door opened, and Meatlug shot out of confinement.

"What?" Hookfang burst out. "No awful-sounding name for you? That's not fair!"

"She didn't even get an adjective!" Toothless agreed.

"I remember that battle!" she said as she watched herself. "Nothing felt better than just getting out of those prison cells! Well, beating up young Vikings felt pretty good, too."

"Yeah, I remember the bad old days," Stormfly nodded. "Every little victory felt like a big victory when we were prisoners."

On the screen, Meatlug slammed into the wall, dropped to the ground, and eagerly swallowed some rocks that were lying nearby.

"It was very thoughtful of the Vikings to give me rocks to eat," she said. "Otherwise, I couldn't have flamed anybody."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to keep the rocks away from you for their first lesson?" Toothless asked. "Did they _want_ you to flame the trainees?"

"I've often wondered about that," Meatlug answered. "My best guess is that they were trying to do a natural-selection thing. You know, weed out the unfit ones right away, and then spend the rest of the time training the ones who proved that they could survive? I guess they were using me to do their weeding for them."

"You almost weeded out Hiccup, didn't you?" Barf asked.

"Yeah," the Gronckle said with a touch of sadness. "I feel bad about that."

"Bad that you almost killed him," Belch wondered, "or bad that you didn't weed him out?"

"Bad that I almost killed him, of course!" she exclaimed. "Even before the war ended, he was acting like a friend to us. The next time I faced him in the ring, he knocked me out with crazy grass, which hurt a lot less than getting bashed with Viking weapons, believe me! If I'd killed him the first time..."

"We'd still be at war," Toothless finished. "Hiccup sure had a lot of chances to get killed, and if any one of those chances had turned fatal, everything would have changed."

"You mean nothing would have changed," Stormfly corrected him. "They'd still be beating us up in the ring with deadly weapons, the war would still be on, and we'd still be giving up all our food to feed the Queen. Meatlug, thank you for not killing Hiccup! But how did you miss him when he couldn't run away?"

"Watch and see," the Gronckle said. They watched, and they saw her take out the twins with one shot. Then the other four teens began banging on their shields with their weapons, and the noise was just as distracting to the dragons watching the scene as to Meatlug within the scene.

"Tell them to stop that!" Sizzle protested.

"They will in a minute," Meatlug remembered. They stopped just in time for her to blast Fishlegs' shield.

"Nice shot," Hookfang nodded. "Too bad you almost killed your own rider."

"He wasn't my rider yet!" she reminded him. "He was just another young, inexperienced target."

"Why did you keep shooting their shields instead of hitting the Vikings?" Hookfang wanted to know.

"Don't you remember what it was like, getting out of that prison cell after spending days or weeks inside?" she asked him. He nodded; he remembered all too well. She went on, "My eyes had been in the dark for all that time, and suddenly I was out in the daylight! I could barely see. The shields were shiny and colorful, so they made the best targets for me. I figured that, if I saw a shield moving, there had to be a Viking attached to it, and maybe I'd get lucky, or at least do some splatter damage." Her doppelganger on the flat panel had taken out Snotlout while she was talking.

"So, I guess it's just you and me, huh?" Hiccup said to Astrid.

"Nope, just you," she answered, and ducked out of the way just in time to let Hiccup's shield get hit by Meatlug's lava-breath.

"Wow! That wasn't a bit nice!" Stormfly exclaimed. "I know my rider is the no-nonsense type, but that was just cold. He could have been killed!" Hiccup ran for his life with Meatlug in pursuit as Gobber announced, "One shot left!" She pinned him against a wall, opened her mouth to blast him out of existence... and Gobber pulled her away so she shot the wall instead.

"That's how I missed him," she explained unnecessarily.

"Go back to bed, you overgrown sausage!" Gobber ordered as he wrestled her back into her cell.

"Oh, so _that's_ what he thinks of me?" she complained. "I'm just an overgrown sausage?" She glared suspiciously at the other dragons. "Why didn't any of you tell me I was gaining weight?"

Toothless looked away to the left and tried to look innocent; Hookfang did likewise, looking to the right. Stormfly took it upon herself to explain. "If a male tells a female that he thinks she's getting fat, those are usually his last words. I think it works the same with humans as it does with dragons."

"Besides, it wasn't your fault," Belch said. "I mean, they had you locked up in that cell so you couldn't get any exercise!"

Meatlug was not mollified. "Well, if that's his opinion of me, then I'm never letting him clean my teeth again!"

"I've got a better idea," Barf suggested. "Just before he cleans your teeth, eat a few sausages. Then you can hit him with sausage-breath and remind him of how unkind he was."

"That's not a bad idea. I'll think about that," she nodded as she returned her attention to the moving pictures. Gobber was telling the teens, "Remember, a dragon will always, _always_ go for the kill." Hiccup stared at the smoldering molten rock on the wall that had nearly ended his life, and...

"I know that facial expression!" Toothless exclaimed. "He just had an idea!"

Hookfang shouted, "Hiccup-idea! Get down!"

The scene jumped back into the forest where Toothless had been tied up. Hiccup hefted his machine-thrown bola and asked no one, "So why didn't you?" He set down the bola and tried to follow the Night Fury's path when it flew away yesterday. He soon stepped between two huge rocks into an enclosed cove surrounded by ancient trees and sheer rock walls. Birds could be heard singing in the near-distance.

"What a peaceful place!" Stormfly exclaimed.

"For a prison, it wasn't bad, I guess," Toothless said. "I mean, it was better than the cells that you guys were stuck in, but I was just as stuck." They all jumped as Toothless-on-the-screen suddenly leaped in front of them, then made several more attempts to escape the cove, roaring out his frustration as he repeatedly lost control and crash-landed. Hiccup reached into his vest.

"Is he going for his mighty belt-knife again?" Hookfang jeered. But Hiccup pulled out a book of papers and a drawing-stick and proceeded to sketch the Night Fury.

"He doesn't act very afraid," Meatlug noticed. "The last time you two met, you almost killed each other. Now he's making a portrait of you!"

"Why don't you just fly away?" Hiccup softly asked no one, then looked again and erased one of the tail fins from his drawing of the Night Fury.

"Yeah, now you know why," Toothless said bitterly. He watched himself crash-land again, then snap unsuccessfully at two fish in the cove. "I was getting hungry, too." Then Hiccup dropped his drawing stick, the Night Fury heard the sound of it falling, and he noticed the human for the first time.

"Now you're gonna get it, Viking boy!" Belch sneered.

But they just stared at each other.

"Why didn't you let him have it, like you promised?" Barf asked.

"At the time, I couldn't have given you a reason," Toothless answered. "But there was something in his eyes... something about the way he looked at me without fear, but also without being a threat. He knew I could kill him then and there, but he didn't even try to flee. He just looked back at me. It was as if he knew I wasn't going to shoot him."

"How could he have known that?" Stormfly wondered.

"There is no way he could have known," the Night Fury replied. "Maybe he was just hoping. But we'd already made eye contact twice, once when I was helpless and once when he was helpless, and we didn't kill each other at either time. We were both somehow realizing that we didn't _want_ to kill each other."

Then the scene changed to the doors of the Vikings' Mead Hall. "Hey, wait a minute!" Belch exclaimed. "How did that scene end? How did he get away without getting fireballed?"

"I blinked, and that moment of understanding ended," Toothless told him. "After that, I went back to trying to escape from the cove and tried not to pay him any attention. When I looked for him a few minutes later, he was gone. I guess he'd seen what he came to see." They watched the teens heap some more verbal abuse on Hiccup, until Gobber swept Fishlegs' plate and mug onto the floor and dropped a thick book in its place. "The Dragon Manual. Everything we know about every dragon we know of." Thunder rumbled; the meeting was over, and the rest of the teens soon left. Hiccup stayed late into the night, reading about dragons.

"Thunderdrum... Extremely dangerous, kill on sight." "Timberjack... Extremely dangerous, kill on sight." "Scauldron... Extremely dangerous..." "Changewing... kill on sight."

"I'm picking up a pattern here," Sizzle muttered.

"I don't think they liked us very much," Hookfang added.

"Gronckle..."

"Hey! That's not a very flattering picture!" Meatlug complained.

"Is it possible to make a flattering picture of a Gronckle?" Barf snickered.

"Zippleback..."

"They didn't make you look very beautiful, either," Meatlug said sarcastically. "In fact, they made you look downright... hideous!"

"Burns its victims... buries its victims... chokes its victims... turns its victims inside-out..."

"What kind of a dragon turns its victims inside-out?" Stormfly asked. "I've never heard of that one."

"Just a very angry Night Fury, I think," Meatlug said.

Then Hiccup read, "Night Fury," as he turned to an almost-blank page.

"What? No ugly picture?" Stormfly wondered.

"Did they think you're invisible?" Hookfang asked Toothless.

"Evidently, they never saw enough of me to draw a picture of me," Toothless answered. "Hiccup did call me 'the dragon that no one's ever seen' a few minutes ago. Maybe that's why he was so excited to draw me when he saw me in the cove."

Hiccup went on, "The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself."

"That's a vicious lie!" Toothless burst out as he leaped to his feet. "My mother was not lightning and my father was not dead!"

"Yeah!" Belch nodded. "Everybody knows that your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!"

Toothless turned on the Zippleback with a snarl. "Hey! No mothers! You leave my mother out of this! My mother was a saint."

"Never engage this dragon," Hiccup continued. "Your only chance: hide and pray it does not find you."

In the silence that followed, Hookfang was the first to speak. "Wow! The rest of us got an 'Extremely dangerous, kill on sight.' You got a 'Put your head between your legs and kiss your tail goodbye.' They were _really_ afraid of _you."_

"I earned it," Toothless said simply.

"So how come Hiccup wasn't afraid of you?" Stormfly pressed him.

"He _was_ afraid, at that point," the black dragon replied. "Remember how I roared at him, and he fell down and fainted a minute later? He knew what I could have done to him. He'd seen what my fire could do to a catapult. But, for some reason, he didn't act afraid. Maybe he was curious, and his curiosity got the better of him."

The scene changed to broad daylight at sea. Three Viking longships were running before the wind. "Targets!" Hookfang burst out. "Oh, yeah, that's right, we don't do that stuff anymore. Darn it! The war was hard, but at least we could have some _fun_ now and then."

"Paws!" Meatlug suddenly shouted. "Look at the pictures on those Viking sails! The first one is a dragon with swords through it, which is no surprise, I guess. But look at the second one! It's a Viking breathing out fire!"

"Were they trying to copy us?" Sizzle wondered.

Stormfly didn't get it, either. "If they hate us and our fire so much, then why would they draw themselves doing what we do?"

"They could never do what we do," Hookfang said firmly. "Maybe it's a picture of a Viking who ate too much garlic for lunch. Play!"

They watched Stoick watching, waiting, and then giving the orders for his ships to approach the nest. The ships disappeared into the fog... which was quickly lit up from within by a burst of fire and the silhouette of a Monstrous Nightmare.

"Yeah! Get 'em!" Hookfang shouted.

"Hookfang, we _don't do that stuff_ anymore!" Stormfly rebuked him. If she had more to say, she bit it off, because the scene suddenly changed back to the Dragon Training ring. Hiccup was asking Gobber about Night Furies when a blast of Nadder fire burned his axe-head right off the handle.

"You shot at the axe and not at the Viking?" Sizzle asked Stormfly.

"Like I said before, I didn't like that weapon," she answered. "Once I disarmed him, I figured he'd be an easy kill. But the other ones distracted me before I could finish him off. At least, that's what I was thinking at the time." They watched as the twins hid in her frontal blind spot, then got into a fight that ended when she separated them with another fiery blast.

"How could you miss them at that range?" Hookfang wanted to know.

"I couldn't decide which one to kill, and I wound up shooting right between them," she admitted. "I'm sure they got some mild burns out of that, but not the serious burns that Belch's rider said he wanted."

"I guess you can't have everything," Belch shrugged. They watched as first Astrid, then Snotlout somersaulted in front of the Nadder; then Hiccup tried it and failed. He made a panicky escape; the dragon turned on Astrid, but Snotlout stepped in front of her and hurled his spiked mace... and missed.

"See?" Stormfly said. "Dragons aren't the only ones who can miss at point-blank range! That was such a stupid move, I laughed at him instead of pouncing on him. It was a lot more satisfying."

Stormfly-on-the-screen began chasing Astrid, knocking over half of the training-ring walls as she did. "I admit, wrecking those human walls felt good, too," she said as they watched her destroying the interior of the ring. Astrid somehow wound up on top of the walls, then jumped down on Hiccup and got her weapon stuck in his shield. As Stormfly lunged at her, she pulled both weapon and shield away and hit the dragon with all her strength. Stormfly staggered away, stunned from the blow.

"That part didn't feel so good," she said.

Astrid forgot about the dragon for a moment. She turned on Hiccup angrily. "Is this some kind of a joke to you? Our parent's war is about to become ours." She threatened him with her axe as she ordered, "Figure out which side you're on!"

"Well, she's a proper little witch, isn't she?" Sizzle commented.

"Did she really think he might be on _our_ side?" Meatlug asked.

"She had a funny way of making him want to be on _her_ side," Hookfang added.

"He's looking thoughtful," Toothless noticed. "I think something important might be about to happen."

He was right.


	4. Chapter 4

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 4

The dragons were watching images of the cove on the flat panel. "Here again?" Hookfang complained. "What's so special about this place, that we have to keep coming back here?"

"You'll see, very soon," Toothless said softly. For once, he was looking forward to seeing what the moving pictures showed him. He remembered these events like they had happened yesterday... and the memories were happy ones.

They saw Hiccup entering the cove with a shield, but no visible weapon. He quickly left the shield behind when it got stuck between the rocks. Now all he had was a fish in his hands.

"He's making me hungry," Sizzle said.

"No weapon?" Barf smirked. "Was he going to hit you with the fish if you attacked him, Toothless?"

Hiccup slowly, quietly walked across the cove, looking in all directions... except the direction where the Night Fury crouched on a rock, preparing to pounce.

"Hee hee! Now you're gonna get it, pink boy!" Hookfang grinned. But Toothless did not pounce. He climbed down the rock onto the ground, smelling the fish, resenting the human. He stopped about forty feet away and rumbled at the helpless young man before him. But Hiccup did not run. He held out the fish. Toothless sniffed it, took a few steps toward him... and then pulled away, angrily growling, "This cove is a knife-free zone!"

"How did you know he had a knife?" Meatlug asked him.

"He had one before, when he almost killed me," the Night Fury answered without taking his eyes off the screen, "so it made sense to think he still had it. That was a guess, but I knew I was right when I smelled metal on him. We dragons can smell metal when the edges are new and bare, like a knife that's been sharpened recently."

"Oh, that's right," the Gronckle nodded. "I don't smell metal on Fishlegs very often because he doesn't carry anything sharp."

"Well, I definitely smelled metal on Hiccup," Toothless went on. "I now know that he works in the Vikings' metal-making building, so it doesn't surprise me that he sharpened his blade often."

On the screen, Hiccup took his knife out of his belt and dropped it. When Toothless growled again, he kicked it into the water.

"Now he's completely defenseless," Stormfly observed.

"That little knife wouldn't be of much use against a Night Fury, anyway," Hookfang countered. "He wasn't giving up much when he gave up his knife."

"Still, when he gave up the only weapon he had, it showed a lot of trust," the Nadder said.

"Or foolishness," Belch added.

Toothless' response on the screen was to sit down and widen his eyes, a pose that had reduced more than one Viking girl to mush, exclaiming, "Oh, he's so _cute!"_ In this context, he was clearly sending a message of, "What happens next?" But he was still a Night Fury, and he was still the most dangerous enemy the Vikings ever knew, and the Viking standing before him still had no weapon or shield.

Again Hiccup offered him the fish. The Night Fury's eyes narrowed, suspicious of any human trick that this boy might be hiding. But he was very hungry, the fish smelled delicious, and the offer of food looked sincere. He approached slowly, giving Hiccup a clear view of the inside of his gaping maw. "Huh. Toothless," he said out loud. "I could have sworn you had -"

CHOMP! "...teeth," Hiccup finished weakly. The fish was gone.

"So _that's_ what your name means!" Stormfly exclaimed. "He thought you didn't have any teeth, so that's what he called you! It's what he still calls you!"

"Did the Vikings ever give anybody a nice-sounding name?" Meatlug wondered. "Even Hiccup was in the giving-weird-names habit."

Toothless popped his teeth in and out a few times. "It doesn't matter now," he decided. "I've gotten used to him calling me Toothless even though he knows it's not the case. Should it matter, now that I know what it means as well? I'm not going to redefine our friendship over something silly like that."

They watched as Toothless backed Hiccup up against a rock, in a very similar way to what he'd done when they first met. But instead of roaring, the Night Fury coughed three times and deposited half of the fish in Hiccup's lap. Then he backed off, sat down, and waited.

"Why does he have that disgusted look on his face?" Barf wondered. "He was okay when he was holding the whole fish; shouldn't he be even more okay, now that he's holding only half a fish?"

"Toothless," Meatlug asked, "can you tell me what was going through your mind at that point?"

"Paws," Toothless said. "This might take a minute. At that moment, I was thinking that the two of us had arranged a kind of one-dragon, one-human cease-fire in the war between the dragons and the Vikings. How long that might last, I didn't know. He was kind enough to share his food with me, so I returned the favor and shared my food with him."

"Even though you were hungry and you needed that fish?" Hookfang wondered.

"Something else that was going through my mind was curiosity," the Night Fury admitted. "None of us had ever gotten that close to a human without getting hit. This human, who was smaller than the others and should have been more afraid, was playing by a different set of rules. I didn't know what his rules were, and I wanted to know. He was unarmed, so he wasn't a threat; if he turned out to be a problem, killing him would have been half a moment's work, and then I could get back to the important stuff, namely, finding a way out of that cove so I could return to the nest. In the meantime, I wasn't having any luck escaping, so I figured I might as well play along with the human and learn what I could."

When he said, "Play," the pictures resumed. Human and dragon stared at each other wordlessly for a few seconds. Then Toothless glanced pointedly at the half-a-fish in Hiccup's lap. The boy understood the message, grimaced, and took a bite.

"Why was he so reluctant?" Barf asked. "That fish looks delicious!"

"We already knew that the Vikings ate fish," Belch added, "because they caught them and hung them on racks for us to take. I would have expected him to really chow down on that fishy."

"I can answer that," Stormfly said. "Since the war ended and we took some of the Vikings as our friends, we've learned that they like to remove the scales, the bones, and the innards, and then heat their fish over a fire before they eat them. It changes the flavor to something they like better. Personally, I think it ruins the taste; I don't understand it at all. But that's Vikings for you."

Hiccup held the bite of fish in his mouth. Toothless mimed swallowing, at which point the boy reluctantly swallowed his mouthful.

"I just realized something!" Meatlug burst out. "You two were communicating! You were telling him what you wanted him to do, and he was understanding you and doing it."

"Yeah!" Hookfang added. "You were giving the orders, and he was obeying. You had the dragon-human relationship down perfectly, right from the beginning."

"That's not the way it is!" Toothless protested. "I was calling the shots at the beginning because I had a more forceful personality than Hiccup did. He's changed a lot since then, and we relate to each other as equals now. But it wasn't all me leading and him following, even then. See?" He gestured with his wing at the flat panel. Hiccup was making the bared-teeth gesture that meant "happy" among the humans. Toothless struggled, but managed to copy the expression.

"Why did that amaze Hiccup so much?" Stormfly asked.

"Because that's when he realized that I wasn't just a stupid animal," the Night Fury replied. "That was his first clue that I'm just as intelligent as he is."

"When did _you_ realize that?" Meatlug wondered.

"I wasn't even thinking about that," Toothless said. "I'd just made first contact with a member of a hostile species and shared food with him. We had a cease-fire in our war. I was still a prisoner in that cove, and I still couldn't fly properly. I wasn't concerned at all with the intelligence of Laboratory Subject #1, which was kind of what he meant to me at that moment. He was a curiosity, nothing more. The idea that he might impact my life in some way... that idea came later."

Hiccup stared at the smiling Night Fury, amazed. He reached out to touch him. The dragon's smile vanished, replaced by a warning snarl; then the Night Fury jumped and glided away, landing quickly before he crashed.

"No touchie!" Barf and Belch chorused.

"Why didn't you let him touch you?" Meatlug asked.

"Because I somehow knew that, if I let him touch me, that would change everything," Toothless said. "We had a cease-fire, but technically, we were still enemies. I wasn't ready for a friendly gesture like that. If we stepped over that line, I had no idea what we might find on the other side. I'll admit, it was a little bit scary to think about."

"The great unknown can be like that," Stormfly nodded.

"Anyway, it felt safer to keep him at more than arm's length," Toothless went on. "Him touching me wouldn't be a threat to my life or my health, but it might be a huge threat to my way of life. I was starting to face the possibility that I might never fly again. I didn't think I could handle two big changes at the same time."

They saw him flame a patch of ground and lay down. Then he glanced up and stared at a bird that chirped and flew away. "What was the big deal with that bird?" Belch wondered.

"Yeah!" Barf added. "You were acting like you never saw a bird before."

"The bird could fly and I couldn't," Toothless explained. "Like I said, I was beginning to realize that my flying days might be done. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention that scene to the other dragons, okay? I don't want them all thinking that I, a Night Fury, was feeling envious of a little songbird." He glared at each of the dragons in turn until they nodded. They saw Toothless look down from where the bird had been, and found Hiccup sitting far too close to him.

"Wasn't he afraid of you at all?" Meatlug asked.

"He sure isn't acting like any other Viking I ever saw," Hookfang nodded. "He's got no weapon and no shield, you're a dragon, and he's following you around! He was close enough that you could have tail-slapped him if you wanted to."

"He knew we had a cease-fire," the Night Fury explained. "Exactly what he was thinking, I don't know, but he obviously figured that our cease-fire would keep him safe, no matter what he did. He was really determined to touch me, and the fact that I could blast him into a pile of fine carbon powder didn't faze him anymore."

"Did he think you were tame?" Stormfly wanted to know.

"Obviously not," Toothless retorted. "See?" They saw Hiccup reach out to touch the Night Fury's tail, then quickly retreat when the dragon lifted his tail fin to glare at him.

The lighting on the moving pictures changed. Apparently, it was now early morning, and Toothless was waking up after hanging upside-down from a tree all night. He looked around and saw Hiccup sitting on the ground, playing with a stick.

"He must have gotten up awfully early, to be there when you woke up," Meatlug commented.

"No, I think he stayed there all night," Toothless said.

"Why would he do that?" Hookfang said, amazed.

"I think he didn't want our cease-fire to end," the Night Fury replied. "At that point, it meant a lot more to him than it did to me."

Hookfang wasn't impressed at the thought. "So you had an unspoken agreement not to kill each other for a while. So what? Why was that such a big deal to him?"

Meatlug answered that. "You saw the way the other Vikings treated him, right? He couldn't arrange a cease-fire with his own people! That truce with Toothless might have been the first act of kindness he'd received in years, so of course he didn't want it to end."

"Even though it was with his people's worst enemy?" Hookfang retorted.

"He was beginning to wonder if we were really enemies after all," Toothless cut in. "We'd always thought of each other as nothing but ruthless killers. Now we were both finding out that we might be wrong, at least in regard to some individuals. He was adjusting to that idea faster than I was. For me, it was still mostly curiosity about the enemy. He wasn't treating me like an enemy, that's for sure."

They saw Hiccup making marks in the ground with his stick. It took them a few seconds to realize that he was drawing a Night Fury's head. Toothless looked over his shoulder for a moment and burbled, and Hiccup suddenly looked nervous.

Hookfang scoffed, "I'd be nervous, too, if I was him. That was a terrible portrait he drew of you! If Snotlout drew me looking that ugly, I'd stomp on the picture, and then give him a quick puff of flame, just to make sure he got the message."

"I'm a Night Fury, not an art critic!" Toothless retorted. "Also, I wasn't looking for excuses to blast him. That's one of the differences between you and me. I didn't care if it looked like me or not. I saw it and realized that I could draw pictures in the dirt, too! I'd never thought of that before; none of us did. It was something new, and it took my mind off of my tail and my flying problems for a few minutes."

"What kind of a picture were you trying to draw?" Sizzle asked as they watched Toothless excitedly making his own marks in the ground with a small tree.

"I was trying to draw Hiccup, but it didn't come out very well," Toothless admitted. "It looked more like Bart Simpson, as drawn by Pablo Picasso. Still, it wasn't bad for a first try. When I was done, I realized it could also be a game board for the old 'Don't Step On a Crack' game that dragon hatchlings like to play."

"Do humans play that game?" Stormfly wanted to know.

"At first, I didn't think so," the Night Fury answered. "I had to tell him _three times_ not to step on the lines! I was starting to wonder if humans are really as intelligent as we thought. But he finally got the idea, and then he played the game with more style than I ever saw in a hatchling. It was almost a dance, the way he did it. He totally lost track of where he was, and he almost backed right into me."

"I was wondering why he was spinning around so much," Sizzle commented. "I thought he was trying to impersonate a Typhoomerang."

"That reminds me," Stormfly said. "What does 'Typhoomerang' mean? Is it another one of those nasty Viking names?"

"Well, the name comes from 'typhoon,' which is a tropical storm that forms in the Pacific Ocean," Toothless thought out loud, "and 'boomerang,' which is a weapon from Australia. Neither one of those things ever got anywhere near the Northland, so the Vikings couldn't possibly know those words. Fishlegs made up the name, and where he got his information, I have absolutely no idea. He must have pulled those words out of his -"

"Ask us about that later," Stormfly cut in. "I think this part is important. He's trying to touch you again."

"Yes, and I warned him off again," Toothless said. "If I'd known that he was every bit the boar-headed, stubborn Viking that his father ever was, I might have played that scene differently, and who knows what might have happened? But watch what happened next!"

The dragons stared in silence as Hiccup looked away, closed his eyes, and held out his hand.

"Oh... my... gosh," Stormfly whispered, wide-eyed. "He's defenseless!"

"Any other dragon would have taken his hand off," Belch commented, but without his usual cocky tone.

"One chomp," Hookfang said quietly, "and he'd be a lefty forever."

"He already _was_ a lefty," Toothless replied, just as quietly. "But do you see what he did? He _knew_ I could bite his hand off, he half-expected me to do it, and he held it out anyway. He totally put his future and his well-being in my control." The Night Fury took a breath. "He trusted me."

"In the middle of the war, a human trusted his life to a Night Fury," Meatlug whispered. "Wow. What did that mean to you?"

"It completely blew me away," Toothless admitted. "I'd seen that Hiccup was non-violent, he was intelligent, he was curious, and he was determined. That meant that, on the inside, he might not be so very different from a lot of dragons I know. But _this..._ this went _way_ beyond what I'd expected. This wasn't just a truce, or a sharing of food, or an appeasing of his curiosity. With one bite, I could change his life forever, and he knew it. And he was willing to take that chance! I asked myself, 'What is so important about touching me, that he's willing to run such an awful risk?' The only answer that made any sense was, 'He really, really wants to be my friend.' He couldn't rub noses with me, the way we dragons do when we show affection, but he wanted something like it, and he was willing to risk losing his hand to get it."

"How could a dragon become friends with a human in the middle of a war?" Hookfang asked.

"I didn't know the answer to that," the black dragon said, "or to any of the other questions that flooded into my head, except for one. The one question that I could answer was, 'Am I willing to be his friend in return?' You know I'm the only one of my kind for at least a thousand miles. I didn't have any real friends in the nest. None of you mocked me or rejected me, the way Hiccup's peers did to him, but in many ways, I was as isolated as he was. I knew what it means to be lonely. I needed a friend, especially in that dark time of flightlessness, and suddenly, out of the blue, came an offer of friendship from a member of a hostile species. And how was I supposed to react to that? There was only one thing I could do."

"You chomped him?" Barf wondered.

"And missed?" Belch added.

"No, Night Furies never miss," the black dragon said. "I didn't chomp him. I showed him that he could trust me, and that I trusted him as well." They saw him lean forward, hesitate for a moment, and then make contact with Hiccup's outstretched hand. Hiccup flinched; the dragon snorted and pulled away. The moment had passed.

"But I was right," Toothless whispered. "That moment really did change everything."


	5. Chapter 5

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 5

"...and with one twist, he took my hand and swallowed it whole!" Apparently, Gobber was passing the evening with his trainees by relating some of his more memorable battles with the dragons. At least, that was how it sounded to the dragons who were somehow watching these events unfold on a flat panel. "And I saw the look on his face. I was delicious! He must have passed the word, because it wasn't a month before another one of 'em took my leg!"

"Oh, he passed the word, all right!" Stormfly snapped. "I remember the Nadder who got his hand, and he warned the rest of us - 'Don't eat any other pieces of that Viking! He tastes terrible! There's no meat on him; he's all fat and gristle, and the fat is all trans fat.' It was Deathfang the Dim-Witted who ignored that warning and ate his leg a month later. He had indigestion for a week!"

"Then why did Gobber say he was delicious?" Sizzle asked.

"Since when could a Viking read the facial expressions of a dragon?" Stormfly retorted.

"Vikings aren't good eating, from what I've heard," Meatlug nodded. "Most of us never even tried to eat them." She glared at Hookfang. "I suppose you're the exception to that rule, right?"

"No, not me! I never tried to eat any Vikings, either," the Nightmare retorted defensively. "I've been on a strict fishetarian diet for years. Sure, I bit a few Vikings, but I didn't swallow." They listened as the teens came up with increasingly bizarre comments about dragon-fighting, until Gobber reined them in with, "It's the wings and the tails ye really want. If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon."

"Hey!" Barf exclaimed. "That Viking stole our proverb!"

"I guess everybody knows that about us," Stormfly admitted.

"Hiccup didn't know it," Meatlug. "Did you see how nervous he looked when he heard that?"

"Nervous, and thoughtful," Toothless said. "I think I know what he's about to do."

"What's he going to do?" Belch asked.

"He's going to darned-near drown the both of us!" the Night Fury burst out.

They saw a series of images showing Hiccup hard at work in the forge, late at night. "Is he making another one of those mild-calibration-issue things, like the one that my buddy stomped on?" Hookfang wondered.

"Yes and no," Toothless answered. "It definitely had some calibration issues, but it wasn't a bit like anything he'd made before."

One by one, the dragons figured out what Hiccup was making. Sizzle was the last to exclaim, "Oh, I get it! He's making you a new tail! But how are you going to control it?"

"That turned out to be the one big problem that he couldn't solve," the Night Fury answered. "Watch and see. I have to admit, it's a little bit funny to look back on this, even though it was scary and frustrating at the time."

"Oh, Toothless!" the boy called as his moving image up-ended a basket full of fish. "I brought breakfast. I hope... I hope you're hungry."

"How did you let him get that close to you before you turned around to see him?" Hookfang demanded. "If he was sneaking up on you with a weapon, you'd have been a dead Night Fury!"

"I knew he wouldn't do that," Toothless answered.

"In other words," Meatlug added, "the two of you were completely trusting each other with your lives already."

"Even though it was kind of a stupid comment on his part," the black dragon went on. " 'I hope you're hungry?' I'd been stuck in that cove for two days, with nothing to eat except half a fish the day before! Of course I was hungry!"

Stormfly cocked her head at the flat panel "Did you realize you were the first dragon who ever had their meal brought to them by a human? He was waiting on you!"

"I hope you gave him a decent tip," Barf smirked.

"I wasn't even thinking along those lines," Toothless admitted. "I was too hungry to do much thinking at all."

"Okay, that's disgusting," Hiccup grunted as he tipped over his basket, spilling fish all over the ground.

"Disgusting? Is he crazy?" Barf burst out. "That's a first-class banquet!"

"We've got some salmon, some nice Icelandic cod, and a whole smoked eel."

"A _what?"_ all the dragons exclaimed.

"Okay, not first-class," Barf said with a firm headshake.

"He _is_ crazy!" Belch added. "Doesn't he know how evil those things are?" They all hissed as Toothless recoiled in horror when Hiccup held up the striped eel, then slowly relaxed after he threw it aside. The Night Fury began eating the other fish as fast as he could swallow them, while Hiccup used the moment of distraction to laboriously strap his hand-made tail fin onto Toothless' tail.

"He's pretty brave, wrestling with a dragon's tail," Stormfly observed. "Why didn't you turn around and let him have it?"

"I was too distracted by the food," Toothless confessed.

"What a typical male," Meatlug muttered. Toothless finished his last fish, realized that Hiccup was sitting on his tail, and slowly spread his wings.

"Now he's gonna get it," Hookfang chuckled. "I gotta see this!" He slid closer to the flat panel so he could see better. Then Toothless exploded into the sky, with Hiccup barely hanging on and screaming in terror.

"Yeah!" Hookfang shouted. "Fly, baby, fly! Show him who's the dragon!" The Night Fury lost control and went into a helpless dive, which was arrested at the last moment when Hiccup reached out and extended the tail fin.

"It worked!" Stormfly and Belch chorused, and a moment later, Hiccup echoed them. "It's working!"

"Well, that's what was supposed to happen, wasn't it?" Meatlug wondered. "Why is he so surprised?"

"Because that was the first thing he'd ever made that worked the way it was supposed to," Toothless explained. "Of course, I wasn't convinced of that yet, and so..." They saw him skim low over the cove, turn sharply, and send Hiccup flying into the water. A moment later, he lost control and splashed in, right next to his former rider.

Hookfang let out the breath he'd been holding. "I see what you mean about how he almost drowned the both of you."

Meatlug shook her huge head. "Actually, _you're_ the one who almost drowned the both of you, by shaking him off. Everything was working great! If you'd just kept flying..."

"...Hiccup eventually would have fallen off because he couldn't hold onto my tail any longer," Toothless finished for her. "It's just as well that I threw him into the water from low altitude; that was the safest landing he could have gotten. But we both learned a huge lesson that day. If I was going to fly again, then I needed Hiccup to control my tail fin, and that meant I had to let him ride on me."

"That must have been humiliating," Meatlug said, "especially for a Night Fury."

"It was," Toothless nodded, "but it was still better than being grounded for the rest of my life. Besides, I was slowly getting used to him being around. Letting Hiccup ride me didn't seem nearly as bad as letting a more typical Viking ride me."

Suddenly, they heard Gobber's voice, and the scene changed back to the training ring. One of the dragon cell doors burst open and was instantly obscured by a growing cloud of gray-green smoke.

"Oh, I remember this," Belch said with distaste.

"Can the rest of you kind of look away from this scene?" Barf asked. "This wasn't exactly our brightest shining moment."

"Yeah, this was really embarrassing," Belch threw in.

"They watched me get hit in the jaw with an axe and a shield," Stormfly retorted, "and we just watched Toothless take an unwanted bath, so we're going to watch this bright shining moment of yours, too!"

They watched as the teens paired off, armed only with buckets of water. "Those might work on our sparks," Barf noted, "but what if we decided to bite them or claw them? Were they going to hit us with the buckets?"

"Or use them as shields?" Belch added.

"You're right - that wasn't very good planning on Gobber's part," Stormfly nodded. "I'm starting to wonder if he was actually trying to get a few of those teens killed off."

"He kept me from killing Hiccup," Meatlug said, "but the others... maybe you're right."

Fishlegs was reciting something he'd read somewhere. "Razor-sharp serrated teeth that inject venom for pre-digestion. Prefers ambush attacks, crushing its victims -"

"Will you please stop that!" Hiccup hissed.

"Yeah, stop that!" Belch echoed. "You're giving away all our secrets!"

"Where did he learn all about us?" Barf wanted to know.

"He seemed to know a lot of details about dragons," Hookfang said, "but it didn't do him much good when he had to fight us."

"Your rider knew how to fight," Barf shot back, "and he didn't do so well, either."

"So what does it take for a human to fight a dragon and win," Stormfly asked, "aside from outnumbering us and using those horrible weapons on us?"

Toothless looked back at the screen. "I never saw this scene in real life," he admitted, "but I have a feeling that Hiccup had been spending enough time with me that he was starting to think like a dragon. That will help him win, I think."

"You have no idea!" Belch retorted. They watched Snotlout and Tuffnut throw their water on Astrid and Ruffnut. The girls responded by knocking Snotlout down and throwing a water-filled bucket at Tuffnut.

"And, just like that, four of them were disarmed!" Barf said. "We should have been able to clean up the whole training ring after that!"

"What did we do wrong?" Belch asked his other head.

"You don't remember what happened next?"

"Oh. Yeah. _That."_ The whole Zippleback shivered. They watched as their counterparts on the flat panel pulled Tuffnut into their cloud, knocked Astrid and Ruffnut down with a tail, and let Tuffnut escape, holding his belly and shouting, "Ohh, I am hurt! I am very much hurt!"

Barf snorted. "When he started, he was hoping for some serious burns. What a courageous Viking warrior he turned out to be! All I did was poke him in the ribs with my nose horn, and he ran away in a panic! My horn isn't even that sharp!"

"We didn't even get to the good part, where we tried out the serious-burns thing for him!" Belch chuckled. "What would he have done if we really burned him?"

Now Barf's head snaked out of the smoke; it was the first glimpse of the Zippleback that the teens had seen so far. Fishlegs hesitated when Barf came at him, then threw his water. This, of course, had no effect, because Barf wasn't the sparking head. He retaliated with a stream of green gas that sent Fishlegs running in terror.

"What was he so afraid of?" Barf asked. "The smoke can't do much harm until my buddy lights it."

"It can make humans sick if they breathe too much of it," Stormfly answered. "But I still think he over-reacted."

Meatlug added, "And once again, they all leave Hiccup alone to face the dragon. Did you almost kill him like I did?"

"We wish!" Belch said heartily.

"We don't wish he was dead," Barf added, "but we wish we'd shown him who was boss, instead of... well, watch and see."

Now Hiccup was facing both heads. Belch sparked a warning. If those sparks hit Barf's gas, the resulting explosion would leave everyone in the ring hurt, very much hurt. The boy threw his water... and it fell far short. "Oh, come on!" Now he was defenseless. Gobber began to run to the aid of the chief's son. Again.

What happened next, none of the other dragons understood at first. Both heads of the Zippleback hesitated. Hiccup stood, and Barf and Belch backed away. "Back!" Hiccup shouted, suddenly in complete control of the situation. "Back! Now don't you make me tell you again!" Seemingly with nothing but hand gestures and raw courage, the boy forced the big dragon back into its prison cell, as the teens and the village Gothi watched in stunned amazement.

"How is he _doing_ that?" Sizzle wondered.

"Now think about what you've done," he said slyly, reached into his vest, and pulled out the eel that had so repulsed Toothless earlier in the day. He threw it into the cell; Barf and Belch cowered against the far wall to keep as far away from it as possible.

"Gag me with a mackerel!" Stormfly burst out. "He's using biological warfare!"

"So _that's_ how he did it!" Hookfang exclaimed.

"He learned about the eels from you, Toothless!" Meatlug added. "You were giving away all our secrets to him!"

"What did you expect me to do?" Toothless shot back. "Was I supposed to eat the eel, just to keep our secrets safe? Yuck!" He shivered at the thought.

They watched Hiccup shut the Zippleback's cell doors, wipe the eel slime off his hands onto his vest, and notice his teacher and his classmates staring in shocked, open-mouthed silence at him. As though he did this kind of thing all the time, he excused himself from the class and ran off. The background music suddenly turned into an energetic dance tune as he began to make something.

"What happened to his nervousness?" Meatlug asked. "He looks totally confident now."

"Yeah, he doesn't look like the Hiccup at the beginning of these pictures at all!" Hookfang said. "What happened to him?"

"Two things," Toothless answered. "He did something right, and he found someone who liked him. That was all it took for a totally different Hiccup to shine through."

"Are you saying you changed him?" Stormfly asked.

"No, I couldn't do that," the Night Fury said. "I know I'm amazing, but even a Night Fury can't change someone's personality. That other Hiccup was always inside him. But the fear of failure, and the pressure from the other Vikings, always kept it inside and wouldn't let it out. What you're seeing for the first time is the real Hiccup."

"Okay," Hookfang nodded, "but what is he making?"

"Something so he could ride on me," Toothless said. They saw Hiccup hold up the newly-made saddle, whereupon Toothless took off running in a wild game of tag.

"Why didn't you let him put it on you?" Meatlug asked. "Didn't you know what he wanted to do?"

"Of course I knew what he wanted to do!" Toothless replied, "I'm not stupid. But if I made it too easy for him, he might have suspected something. Besides, he was keeping me well-fed, and I was in no danger of being shot down anymore, so I was kind of enjoying life, except for the 'grounded' part. I felt playful that day. Did you see how my tongue was hanging out as I ran away from him? It was all a game. If I didn't want him to catch me, then he never would have caught me. But, as you can see, I wound up with the saddle, and Hiccup, on my back."

"But not for long!" Hookfang grinned as Hiccup pulled the tail-control line too hard, Toothless swerved in the other direction, and dragon and rider parted company and crashed.

"Another darned-near drowning," Toothless muttered. "It's a wonder that we even survived that experimental phase of his. If those were mild calibration issues, then I'd hate to see a major one!"

"Well, would you expect a human to know anything about flying?" Stormfly asked. "Of course he had to experiment! He was learning how to do something that no human had ever done before, and it's not like you could explain the process to him. You ought to be thankful that he was willing to put so much time and effort into helping you back into the air again."

"I _am_ thankful now," the black dragon replied earnestly, "but getting here from there was no picnic! Watch what we did next, and you'll see what I mean." Hiccup created a tether to keep him from flying out of his saddle so easily, and they tried flying again. This time, they lost control at low altitude and skidded to a halt in a field of tall grass. Hiccup managed to stay on his feet, but Toothless...

"Crazy grass?" Stormfly exclaimed with a laugh. "You landed in a whole _field_ full of crazy grass?" They all laughed (except Toothless) as the Night Fury went out of control at the smell of the grass. Hiccup held up a few pieces of it, looking thoughtful. The scene changed back to the training ring; it was Meatlug's turn again, and it looked like she was owning the ring. She headbutted Tuffnut and sent him flying, then charged at Hiccup.

"No fire?" Hookfang wondered. "Why weren't you flaming them?"

"They didn't give me any rocks that time," she answered. "Wait a minute, I think I remember this fight..." On the flat panel, she rushed up to Hiccup, who nervously held out his handful of crazy grass. Her eyes lit up; she skidded to a halt on the stone floor and sniffed the grass. She smiled with delight, her tail waggled, and then she rolled over on her side, senseless. The onlookers, including the tribe's Gothi, were mystified. How did Hiccup knock out a Gronckle like that?

"So _that's_ how he learned about using the crazy grass on us!" Hookfang burst out.

"I still don't understand why you passed out at the smell of the stuff," Toothless said. "Most of us just get really, really happy."

"We Gronckles have extra-sensitive noses, remember?" Meatlug replied. "The smell of that grass hits us a lot harder than it hits you. If a dragon with a really good nose, like a Rumblehorn, got a whiff of it, he'd probably go into a coma or something."

They saw the teens walking home from the ring. They were all talking about Hiccup's feat.

"Hey, they aren't mocking him!" Barf noticed.

"You're right," Belch nodded. "How come they're treating him just like one of the gang?"

"It's like he said earlier," Toothless reminded them. "In that tribe, killing a dragon is everything. All of a sudden, it looks like Hiccup is turning into a dragon fighter, so he's earned their respect."

"Except for my rider," Stormfly observed. "She's walking behind them all, and she looks mad."

"That's because your rider wanted to be the Number One dragon fighter in the village," Hookfang said. "At the start of their Dragon Training, it looked like she could win her prize with one hand tied behind her back; there wasn't much competition. But now, Hiccup just won a round; now he's becoming a threat to her dreams.'

"Hiccup? A threat?" Sizzle giggled. "I'll bet nobody saw _that_ coming!"

"So he won one round," Stormfly agreed reluctantly. "But did that change everything?"

"I think you, of all dragons, ought to know the answer to _that_ question," Toothless responded. "I remember this next part! Do you?"

They saw Hiccup scratching and rubbing Toothless' neck; the dragon was wriggling with delight at the feeling.

"Why is he doing that?" Sizzle asked.

"I think that's what humans do with animals that they like," Meatlug said. "I've seen them doing similar things to their dogs." Suddenly, the boy reached under Toothless' jaw. A moment's rubbing there, and the dragon grunted and fell to the ground, blissed-out and nearly unconscious.

Hookfang seemed embarrassed. "Did he... did you and he just...?"

"Yeah, he found my 'D' spot," Toothless admitted.

"That's kind of personal when the two of you hadn't even gone on a date yet," Meatlug grinned.

"Maybe all of those early flying trials counted as going on dates," the black dragon thought out loud. "They were mostly disasters, but I think a lot of human dates are disasters, too."

"He's learning all of our secrets from you!" Hookfang realized. _"That's_ how he got so good at fighting us!"

"He definitely got good at it," Stormfly said. "Yes, I do remember this part now." They saw her in the training ring, knocking Astrid's thrown axe aside and sending her running. Then she charged at Hiccup, who was wielding a spiked mace (Stormfly had ruined his axe with her fire the first time they'd met). He dropped the weapon as she approached, moved to get into her blind spot, heard Astrid's battle cry, and hurriedly began scratching the Nadder's neck. After a moment, he found her 'D' spot, and she collapsed in a blissed-out blue heap on the stone floor just before Astrid could strike her.

"Didn't that hurt, hitting the ground like that?" Hookfang asked her.

"It hurt a lot less than my rider's axe would have hurt me," she answered. "Actually, him rubbing me was the first good feeling I'd had since they captured me and stuck me in their training ring. If I could speak his language, I ought to thank him for that. Even though him rubbing me there was kind of personal."

"Do you think he should have bought you dinner first?" Toothless smiled.

"Why not?" the Nadder shot back. "At least he brought you breakfast first!"

Inside the Vikings' Mead Hall, Hiccup took his place at an empty table, the way he'd always done. But things were different now. Vikings converged on him from all over the room, eager to hear his stories and learn his secrets (which he carefully refused to divulge). Astrid found herself alone, and getting angrier at him.

"It's a role reversal," Meatlug decided. "She was accustomed to being the queen bee, and Hiccup was the reject. Now it's the other way around, and she sure doesn't like it!"

"But he wasn't even fighting us!" Hookfang realized. "He hasn't hit a single one of us with a weapon yet. Why do they think he's a great dragon fighter when he isn't fighting?"

"I guess they only care about results," Toothless said. "They knew some basic tricks, like our blind spots, or making noise with their shields. Hiccup just took it to the next level. The other Vikings didn't care _how_ the dragons went down, as long as we went down. After those first few disasters in the ring, Hiccup was undefeated. That made him a hero to the other Vikings."

"What would they have done if they knew he was learning our secrets by making friends with a Night Fury?" Meatlug wondered.

"I don't know," Toothless shrugged. "But I think it might have been very, very bad for him."


	6. Chapter 6

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 6

The flat panel shifted back to pictures of the cove again. Toothless, now wearing his full Hiccup-made flying rig, was trying to pounce and catch a spot of light reflected off of Hiccup's hammer. The young man was smiling broadly as the dragon repeatedly failed to capture his elusive quarry.

"Oh, he thought teasing me was funny?" Toothless burst out. "After all the work I put into finding his missing helmet last Snoggletog, _now_ I find out he thinks it's cute that I can't find something? Well, the next time that stupid spot of light shows up and starts dancing all over the landscape, he can catch it himself!"

Stormfly turned to Meatlug with a smile and whispered, "He doesn't get it."

"He just needs to lighten up a little," Meatlug replied. "When I'm with my rider and that spot of light appears, I don't waste any effort trying to catch it. I just turn my back on it and go to sleep. When I wake up, it's gone. Problem solved."

Again, the scene shifted to the dragon-training ring. "Meet the Terrible Terror!" Gobber's voice came from the flat panel.

"Yeah!" exclaimed Sizzle. "This is my big scene! Everybody watch me!" They watched as the tiny dragon emerged from a tiny door in the base of a cell door that was meant for much larger dragons. He blinked in the sunlight and trilled.

"Ha!" Tuffnut laughed. "It's, like, the size of my -" His words were cut off when the Terror leaped at his face, knocked him flat, and began gnawing on his nose. The other teens scattered in panic.

Hookfang's face was nearly pressed against the panel. "The size of his _what?_ The size of his _what?"_

"I'm pretty sure you don't want to know," Toothless said solemnly.

Tuffnut endured barely a few seconds of this torment before he fought off the little dragon and ran away, shouting, "Ohh, I am hurt! I am very much hurt!" Then Hiccup used the metal of his shield boss to cast a reflection on the ground and lure the Terror back into his cell. "Wow! He's better than you ever were," a red-nosed Tuffnut said to a seething-mad Astrid.

"Your big scene wasn't that big," Barf grinned down at Sizzle.

"At least I took one of them down, just like you did!" the Terror answered hotly. "And I got him to yell that he was very much hurt, just like you did."

"And he didn't get an eel thrown at him like you did," Stormfly added. "But, Sizzle, why did you fall for that reflection trick? I thought that worked only on cats."

"It was a shiny object," the little dragon said. "I love shiny objects. I never see enough of them, especially when I was locked in that dark cell for days or weeks at a time."

"You're way too distractable for your own good," Hookfang said, trying to sound wise. "You need to stay focused, especially with Vikings around, or you might - _squirrel!"_

"But did you notice Hiccup during that last scene?" Meatlug exclaimed. "He's totally confident! He's completely in control! There's no trace of that earlier nervousness or fear of failure. He's really changed since he got to know you, Toothless."

The black dragon managed a smile. "I bet you never thought of me as a good influence, huh?"

"A good influence on Vikings?" the Gronckle grinned back. "Never in a million years!"

Suddenly the scene changed to the forest; Astrid was practicing her axe-throwing technique as hard as she could. "She's going to kill that tree if she keeps it up," Stormfly commented. "The Viking chief said that Vikings could 'crush mountains, level forests, tame seas!' Is she working on the 'level forests' part?"

"I think she's tired of Hiccup making her look bad," Hookfang suggested. "She's practicing extra-hard against a tree so she'll be a better fighter against, uhh, things that aren't trees."

Meatlug disagreed. "I think she's just letting off steam at the expense of that poor tree, because she's so angry."

"It's too bad she didn't know Hiccup's secret," Toothless said. "She could have worked with another dragon and, combined with her fighting skills, she might have become the ultimate dragon killer. Wait, what am I _saying?"_

"Even if she knew, I don't think she would have done it," Stormfly corrected him. "She still hated us too much. Even the thought of winning her contest would not have been worth the shame of compromising her values by teaming up with a dragon."

"It's just as well," Barf added. "I'd hate to think of an axe-thrower like that who also knew all our secrets."

"That axe looks really hurty," Sizzle nodded. They watched as Hiccup nearly took the axe to his forehead by accident, made a quick escape, and then began fastening an improved flying harness onto the Night Fury as Toothless gorged himself on fish from a basket. Then they saw the two of them them flying... except they were tethered to the ground by a rope tied to a tree stump.

"What's with the Night Fury kite?" Belch asked.

"I think he was trying to get more flying practice and cut down on the crash landings," Toothless said. A moment later, the rope broke and they crashed anyway. This time, Hiccup's saddle tether didn't come loose; the mounting hook was bent flat by their rough landing. After the sun went down, they saw Hiccup greet the night watchman, wait for him to pass, then sneak a twenty-six-foot-long dragon into the village and hope that they wouldn't be noticed.

Incredibly, they got away with it. "That was one un-watchful watchman!" Barf burst out.

"I wish he was that un-watchful when our riders are trying to get away with stuff," Belch threw in. "He takes all the fun out of having fun." They saw Hiccup trying to straighten the bent hook, get interrupted by Astrid, and run for safety.

"Did he ever get the hook straightened out?" Sizzle wondered.

"Obviously, he did," Toothless said. "He isn't stuck to me right now, is he?"

Then they saw a half-wrecked Viking ship pulling into the docks with a large chunk missing from its hull. The chunk was surrounded by burn marks. The sail was shredded and perforated; it was a wonder that the ship had gotten home at all. "Gronckle burns," Stormfly nodded.

"I didn't see any Nadder burns on that ship," Meatlug said archly.

Stormfly glared down at her. "When a Nadder burns a ship, it doesn't come back."

"Why are there so many Vikings on board?" Sizzle interrupted.

"Three ships went out; one ship came back," Toothless said. "That one ship is carrying all the survivors from the two ships that sank, as well as its own crew."

Stoick was clearly in a foul mood; his latest mission had failed as badly as the previous ones, and they'd taken a beating from the dragons they had set out to destroy. He was soon distracted, though, by a succession of happy Vikings commenting on Hiccup.

"They're making it sound like Hiccup is dead!" Stormfly realized.

"That wasn't nice at all," Meatlug decided.

"I'm sure they didn't mean it," Hookfang said. "I mean, if they were trying to break the chief's heart, they would have come right out and said it, instead of saying stuff with double meanings. That's what Vikings do, right? No subtlety, just bludgeon them full-force, right?"

"You're probably right," Toothless nodded, "but that didn't make it any easier for Stoick, until Gobber set him straight."

"Who would have thought it, eh?" the old smith was saying. "He has this _way_ with the beasts!"

"Oh, if he only knew!" Meatlug chuckled. She stopped when the background music suddenly swelled; they had learned that this was a sign of something important about to happen. They saw Hiccup riding Toothless, then saw that they weren't tethered to the ground anymore. Indeed, they looked to be several hundred feet up.

"You're really flying at last?" Stormfly exclaimed.

"Yes, for another minute or so," Toothless said. "Then it gets scary!"

"Another crash landing?" Meatlug asked sympathetically.

"You have no idea!" the Night Fury answered. They saw him trace a tight circle in the sky as Hiccup fumbled with his tail settings, fly straight and level for a few seconds, then dive nearly straight down to sea level and fly under a huge stone arch.

"Why does Hiccup look so nervous all of a sudden?" Hookfang wondered.

"We were flying under a flock of seagulls," Toothless said, his eyes never leaving the flat panel. "Sometimes seagulls make a mess on whatever is underneath them."

"I suppose that would make you nervous," the Nightmare nodded. "But it all looks pretty tame so far. What went wrong?"

"Just watch," Toothless said shortly. "I need to see how the heck he pulled this off!" They flew into the rocks once, twice; Toothless ear-slapped his rider in frustration.

"Did you really expect him to know everything about flying at that point?" Meatlug asked him.

"I expected him to _not_ crash us into the rocks!" Toothless shot back.

Then Hiccup pulled them into a steep climb, and Toothless responded with all his heart. They soared up into the sky, Hiccup reveling in the newfound sensations of flight, Toothless enjoying them even more because he'd feared he might never be able to fly like this again.

Then Hiccup's cheat sheet came loose from its clip, and he screamed, "Stop!" Toothless understood that command perfectly, and turned his wings into air brakes. Just like that, his forward motion nearly stopped. But Hiccup's forward motion did not. They suddenly came apart.

"Oh my gosh!" Stormfly burst out. "Without him in the saddle, you can't fly right!"

"And Hiccup can't fly at all!" Meatlug added.

"I can't watch," Sizzle whimpered, and covered his eyes with his wings.

They had two chances to reconnect as they tumbled, and they missed both chances. Incredibly, they got a third chance. Hiccup got one hand, then both hands, on the flying gear, and pulled himself back into the saddle. They stopped tumbling and resumed forward flight... straight into a maze of sea stacks that no sane dragon would try to navigate any faster than dead-slow. The contrails whipping off of Toothless' wingtips showed that their speed wasn't even in the same latitude as "dead slow..." although the "dead" part might be far too accurate.

"Tell me when it's over," Sizzle sobbed.

They saw Toothless scream, "No-o-o!" They saw the panic in Hiccup's eyes as he tried to read his cheat sheet at nearly 200 miles per hour.

"Just drop the stupid cheat sheet and _fly!"_ Stormfly shouted at him, even though she knew he couldn't hear her.

But that was exactly what he did. They saw his expression change from fear to rock-solid determination as he discarded the cheat sheet and leaned into the slipstream. Toothless sensed the change and, having no other options, he let Hiccup take control. They turned; they banked; they spun; they turned back; they flew like an insane dragon with a madman for a pilot; and they did it perfectly, as though one mind was controlling both their bodies, with zero margin for error. As the dragons held their breath, they watched Toothless fly like no dragon had ever flown before, and emerge unscathed on the other side.

"Yes! He did it!" Meatlug shouted.

 _"They_ did it!" Stormfly corrected her.

"Unbelievable!" Hookfang gasped.

"Now _that_ was impressive," Barf said.

"Nice work, for a human," Belch added.

"Is it over yet?" Sizzle whined, his eyes still covered.

"Yes," Toothless puffed. "It's over."

"Toothless, why are _you_ breathing hard?" Stormfly wondered. "I mean, you already knew how this was going to end, right?"

"Yes," the Night Fury admitted, "but it was still the scariest thing I've ever done. Even facing the Queen didn't terrify me like that half a minute when I had to trust my life to a human who knew just about nothing about flying. One small mistake from either of us, and we'd both be dead, and the war would still be going. If reliving it in these images got me hyperventilating, imagine what it must have been like to do it in person!"

"That was really amazing," Meatlug said. "But I have to ask you - did it change anything? Was it just a lucky escape, or was it one of those life-changing moments that we keep seeing?"

"Definitely a life-changing moment," Toothless answered her. "One of the biggest life-changing moments, in fact. Before that flight, Hiccup and I had an understanding. Afterward, we had a bond. Before, we trusted each other; afterward, we relied on each other."

"Is that why you just flew through your own fireball and cooked your human medium-rare?" Hookfang asked.

"Oh, that," Toothless said, embarrassed. "That was a celebration shot. Honestly, I was so happy to still be alive, I forgot that I had a passenger who wasn't fireproof. If I'd hurt him, I would have felt terrible about it. Fortunately, it just blackened him around the edges. If I could have talked to him at that moment, I probably would have said something like, 'Welcome to the amazing world of flight, and thank you for helping to save my life! Next time, stay in the saddle.' "

"That was quite a smile on your face as you exited those rocks," Meatlug noted. "Were you happy because you realized that Hiccup was a perfect candidate to be transformed into a Night Fury?"

"No, that's a different fanfic," Toothless answered her.

Now they saw Hiccup, still blackened around the edges, sitting against Toothless on a rocky beach somewhere, cooking a fish over a small fire; Toothless was enjoying a pile of fish in front of him. Hiccup looked shocked and stunned.

"Now what's his problem?" Hookfang demanded.

"I think it was a delayed reaction to that insane flight we just took," Toothless explained. "Remember, I'm accustomed to flying, and that ride shook _me_ up! It's hard to imagine the effect it must have had on him."

"You forcing him to fly through your own firebolt didn't help!" Meatlug scolded him.

"Well, I did what I could to make him feel better," Toothless said. "See?" They watched him cough up half a fish and offer it to his human friend.

"Ahh, no, thanks, I'm good," Hiccup said, and turned back to his cooking.

"The humans really do like their fish burnt!" Barf commented. "Why don't they understand that raw is so much better?"

"I've heard that some humans do like raw fish," Stormfly said. "They call it sushi. They eat all kinds of fish that way - salmon, tuna, mackerel, red snapper, and... uhh..." Her voice dropped to a whisper. _"...eels."_

 ** _"EWW!"_** the others all shouted.

"Gross!"  
"Sickening!"  
"Disgusting!"  
"Gag me with a mackerel!"  
"They actually _eat_ those things?"

"Maybe the eels taste okay to a Viking once he's burned them over the fire," Belch suggested. Then they were all distracted by the arrival of a small flock of Terrors. Hiccup became nervous at their approach; these were not tame dragons, and he'd seen what they did to Tuffnut. Then he got even more nervous as Toothless growled at them and possessively guarded his pile of fish. Was Hiccup about to get caught in the middle of a dragon firefight?

The green Terror stole the half-a-fish that Toothless had offered to Hiccup, and took a small bite. The dark-yellow one tried to steal it, but the green one flamed it away, which didn't help Hiccup relax at all. Then Toothless stared in amazement as one of his fish began walking away from the pile. They saw that a darker-green Terror was making off with it.

"Yeah! That's my half-sister!" Sizzle exclaimed. "Go, Sis! Carpe carp! Sieze the fish!"

"I _beg_ your pardon?" Toothless growled, staring down at the much smaller dragon.

"Well, I have to root for my own family, don't I?" Sizzle asked, backing off a step.

On the flat panel, Toothless was having none of it. He grabbed the other end of the fish, and after a very short tug-of-war, the Terror got a piece of the tail fin and the Night Fury got the rest. He swallowed it and laughed mockingly at the Terror.

"Okay, Sis, you made your point," Sizzle called to her image. "Now get out of there! He's a lot bigger than you!"

The Terror on the screen couldn't hear him. She angrily spat out the piece of tail fin, clawed the ground, and took a deep breath so she could shoot fire.

"Oh, this isn't going to end well!" Sizzle burst out, and covered his face with his wings again. He missed Toothless shooting a puff of flame right down the green Terror's gullet, igniting her fire gases all at once and knocking her silly.

"That's what happens when you pick on somebody bigger than you are," Hookfang scolded her image.

Belch added, "I wish I'd thought of that! Those Terrors stole a few of _my_ fish over the years, too. I bet a few of my sparks down the throat would have done some interesting things to those little thieves."

"Are you talking about me and my family that way?" Sizzle challenged him.

"Look me in the eye and tell me you aren't all a bunch of fish stealers," Belch retorted. Sizzle hesitated and hid his head beneath his wings again.

"Huh," Hiccup said. "Not so fireproof on the inside, are you? Here you go." He tossed a small fish to the Terror, which was still wobbling as it walked.

 _"What?_ He gave up one of his own fish?" Stormfly wondered, amazed.

"No dragon would ever do a thing like that!" Barf nodded.

"Hiccup isn't a dragon," Toothless reminded them.

The Terror quickly overcame her woozy feeling and swallowed the fish whole. Then she turned her attention to Hiccup. She trilled and sniffed him several times as she got closer to him, until she was right next to him. She crawled under his arm, lay down right against him, and quickly drifted off to sleep.

Hiccup hesitantly petted the little dragon, an amazed look on his face. "Everything we know about you guys is wrong!"

Stormfly was amazed, too. "It took him this long to figure that out? All the evidence he's seen and heard..."

"...went completely against everything he'd seen and heard while he was growing up," Meatlug cut her off. "He was inventing a brand-new way of thinking. That's never an easy thing to do."

"Is it safe to look at the moving pictures yet?" Sizzle's muffled voice came from within his wings.

"Yes, it's safe to look," Toothless told him. "For now."


	7. Chapter 7

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 7

The dragons watched Hiccup's image on the flat panel as he sat with his head on his drawing desk, idly rolling his drawing stick up and down, mentally a thousand miles away.

"I know that look," Toothless said. "He's thinking."

"What is he thinking about?" Meatlug asked.

"That's obvious!" Sizzle exclaimed. "He's thinking about how everything his people know about Terrible Terrors is wrong, just like he said."

"Actually," Stormfly cut in, "I think he meant that remark about all dragons, not just you and your kind."

Hookfang shook his head. "He's probably thinking about that wild ride you took through the rocks together, and how close you came to dying. Humans worry about dying a lot."

"It could have been both of those things," Toothless nodded, "and probably a few other things as well. The room looks dark, so this must be nighttime. He can't sleep."

"The poor thing," Meatlug said sadly. "That's one problem that we dragons never have!"

"Especially you Gronckles," Hookfang smirked.

Then Hiccup heard footsteps. "Dad! You're back!" he exclaimed, desperately trying to hide all his drawings of Night Furies and artificial dragon tails on his table. "Gobber's not here, so..."

"I know," the chief growled. "I came looking for you."

"Why did he have to go looking for him?" Meatlug wondered. "I mean, how many places in that village would Hiccup be hiding? Didn't Stoick know where to find him?"

"Stoick really didn't know his son," Toothless said simply.

A tense exchange followed. "Why is Hiccup's father sounding so threatening?" Stormfly wondered. "Shouldn't he be glad to see his son again when he wasn't sure he'd be coming back from that last voyage?"

"Shouldn't he be glad to see his son again," Barf chimed in, "when he wasn't sure Hiccup would even survive Dragon Training?"

"Shouldn't he be happy to see his son," Belch added, "when he's amazed that Hiccup is _doing well_ at Dragon Training? It doesn't add up."

"So let's talk about that dragon," the chief finished menacingly.

"Oh, I see what's happening!" Sizzle burst out. "Stoick is talking about Hiccup doing well in Dragon Training, but Hiccup think's he's talking about his friendship with Toothless!"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Hookfang snapped.

"You really had me going there, son!" Stoick laughed. "All those years of the _worst_ Viking Berk has ever seen!"

"Ouch," Toothless said, as though he was feeling Hiccup's pain at that comment.

"That was really harsh," Meatlug nodded.

"And he's _laughing_ about it!" Stormfly added. "Does he have any idea how cruel he sounds? Does he even care how Hiccup feels?"

"Apparently not," Toothless answered. "No wonder Hiccup wanted to be my friend! At least I never judged him, like his father did."

"And everyone else he ever knew," Stormfly added sympathetically.

"With you doing so well in the ring, we finally have something to talk about." Stoick sat down and leaned forward eagerly.

"So... what is Hiccup going to say?" Sizzle wondered.

"Very little, I hope," Meatlug answered, "if Stoick's idea of a father-and-son talk is about spilling a Nadder's guts and mounting his first Gronckle head on a spear. That's really tasteless." Stormfly nodded in agreement. Meatlug was correct; they just stared at each other in awkward silence for a few seconds.

"Stoick could say something," Stormfly noticed.

"Hasn't he said enough?" Hookfang retorted.

"He doesn't know how to talk to Hiccup," Meatlug realized. "He's never sat down and talked with his own son before! All he knows, all he cares about, is killing dragons. Nothing else matters to him, not even his own family."

"He doesn't care for his own son?" Belch marvelled.

"He does, in his own inadequate way," Toothless cut in. "See?"

They watched as Stoick said, "Oh, I brought you something. To keep you safe. In the ring." He presented Hiccup with a helmet.

"The horned mark of cruelty to dragons," Hookfang snarled. "Only dragon-killers wear helmets like that!"

"My rider was the most zealous dragon-fighter in the group," Stormfly realized, "and she never wore a horned helmet. What's up with that?"

"You're right," Barf nodded. "That doesn't make sense."

"Hookfang, doesn't your rider still wear his horned helmet?" Meatlug asked mildly.

"Yeah, well, he's too thick to realize how tasteless he is," the Nightmare muttered.

"What does that say about my rider and _his_ horned helmet?" Meatlug demanded, suddenly angry.

"His horns aren't big enough to threaten anybody," Hookfang smirked.

"The chief is trying to protect Hiccup by giving him that helmet," Stormfly said as she tried to defuse the growing tension. "He doesn't want anything bad to happen to him. Maybe he does care about his own son."

"Then why didn't he give Hiccup that helmet when he started Dragon Training?" Meatlug rebutted her. _"That's_ when he needed to be kept safe in the ring! Or even before that, when he kept having run-ins with dragons all over the village? Why did he wait until now, when he didn't need it so much, to give him that stupid-looking helmet?"

"Is it stupid?" Sizzle asked. "I mean, we have horns on our heads, so if the Vikings wear horns, does that mean they want to be just like us?"

"That's actually a good question," Stormfly nodded. "They hate us with a passion, but they copy us everywhere they can! They have wooden dragons on the fronts of their houses and the bows of their ships, they have dragon pictures on the sails of their ships, they have a metal dragon hanging over the fire in their big hall..."

"...with a sword through it!" Hookfang reminded her.

"It's like some kind of twisted love/hate relationship," the Nadder went on. "They wanted to kill us or drive us away, but if they succeeded, it would have left a big hole in their culture. What would they be without us?"

"Don't worry about that," Hookfang said condescendingly. "I'm sure they would have found someone else to hate."

"Going back to the helmet," Toothless interrupted, "I think I know why Stoick waited until now to give it to Hiccup. It's because the helmet isn't just for protection. It's also a symbol of being a real Viking, and the chief didn't think Hiccup deserved it until now. Hiccup had to earn it by being a successful dragon fighter."

"Even though he wasn't actually fighting us?" Meatlug asked.

"None of them seems to know about that except Hiccup," Toothless said.

Stormfly nodded. "That makes sense, in a Viking-twisted kind of a way. That's why Hiccup was sincerely thankful to get the helmet. Remember, at the beginning, when he said, 'I just want to be one of you guys?' He's done it! Getting that helmet was a promotion from being a nobody to being an actual member of his group. This is the first time since Stoick walked into the room that Hiccup actually relaxed a little and looked like himself."

"Ahh, your mother would have wanted you to have it," Stoick went on. "It's half of her breastplate." Hiccup winced and pulled his hand away from the helmet.

"What was that about?" Meatlug wondered.

"I have absolutely no idea," Toothless said, "and if Hiccup's expression means anything, then I probably don't want to know."

"Matching set," the chief said, tapping his own helmet. "Keeps her... keeps her close, you know."

Sizzle looked away from the flat panel. "Does that mean that Hiccup's mother is... is...?"

"Probably," Hookfang said dispassionately. "A lot of humans got hurt and killed in that war, too. It wasn't just the dragons who found out we were mortal."

"So the man's mate is dead," Meatlug thought out loud, "and he wears a personal part of her armor on his head so he'll remember her? These Vikings are absolutely _warped!"_

"Wear it proudly," Stoick finished. "You deserve it. You've held up your end of the deal."

"You were right, Toothless!" Stormfly burst out. "It _was_ a reward! It _was_ a sign that he was being promoted!"

"And Stoick really _didn't_ want to protect his son until he'd proven himself worthy," Meatlug finished. "I'm sorry, but I have no respect for that Viking Alpha at all. The more I learn about him, the less I like him."

"He's the chief of the village we live in now," Toothless reminded her. "You have to respect the office, even if you don't like the man."

"Grrr... I suppose you're right," the Gronckle snarled.

Hiccup feigned sleepiness, and Stoick agreed that it was time for sleep. The chief's exit was marred by crashing into a pile of scrap metal just outside the forge, but he looked fairly happy. "He couldn't wait to get out of there!" Barf commented. "He was just as uncomfortable as Hiccup!"

"It's like Meatlug said," Toothless replied. "He doesn't know how to talk to his own son."

The scene suddenly changed; they were watching the training ring again. "These sudden scene changes are kind of hard to follow," Sizzle complained. "Couldn't they do a fade, or some other kind of transition, to warn us that a change is coming?"

"Since when did you become a film critic?" Stormfly wondered.

It was another dragon-training session. Meatlug was circling the perimeter of the ring, looking for someone to attack, briefly pausing to gaze longingly out the portcullis to the freedom that lay beyond. A series of flimsy wooden obstacles were set up in rows on the floor.

"Those obstacles would be easy to knock over!" Stormfly commented.

"They'd be even easier to set on fire," Hookfang nodded.

"I think they were just there for the Vikings to hide behind," Meatlug explained. "They weren't even very good hiding places; I guess they forgot that Gronckles can fly overhead and look down!"

"Humans seem to have trouble thinking in three dimensions," Barf agreed.

"You weren't looking down just now, Meatlug," Toothless pointed out.

"I didn't need to," she replied. "I was in no hurry to find them. They couldn't hide forever; I knew they'd have to come to me sooner or later. I just didn't want to be taken by surprise."

"Was that strategy working for you?" Belch asked.

"I'd taken out four of the six Vikings so far," Meatlug said, "and they hadn't hit me once, so I guess it was working pretty well."

Barf shook his head. "Letting them come to you? Those are terrible tactics! Ambush attacks are better, and they're a lot more fun, too."

"You think that way because your heads can't take a beating," the Gronckle answered. "Gronckle heads can take anything a Viking can dish out; then we get to make the counter-attack and... POW! One less Viking for the Northland! Or, at least, that's how we _used_ to do it."

Hiccup found himself cowering behind the same obstacle as Astrid. "Stay out of my way," she snarled. "I'm winning this thing!"

"Good. Please. By all means!"

"She's confident, if nothing else," Hookfang commented.

"But look!" Barf noticed. "Hiccup just looked away from her _and_ away from the dragon, and saw that his father was watching him!"

"For the first time _ever,_ Hiccup has a real chance to do something right with his father watching!" Meatlug nodded. "If he wins this fight, then he'll impress his father."

"But if he wins the fight, then he'll anger the female that he wants to pair off with," Stormfly realized. "No matter what he does, it's going to be wrong in the eyes of someone he cares about. He's in a no-win situation. That's why he suddenly looks so discouraged."

"So... what did he do?" Belch wondered.

"He made his choice," Meatlug said simply. They watched (and cringed) as Astrid charged, screaming a battle cry and waving her axe... and stopping short in shock at the sight of Meatlug lying limp and unconscious on the training-ring floor. Hiccup was standing next to the dragon, minus his helmet, shield and weapon, looking embarrassed that he had achieved every dragon-fighter's dream.

"Chin-rub?" Toothless asked Meatlug.

"Chin-rub," she nodded. "The D-spot again. It was totally painless. In fact, it felt kind of good."

 _" No!"_ Astrid screamed, slamming her axe onto the floor and then flailing the air aimlessly with it. "You son of a half-troll, rat-eating munge-bucket!"

"I'm not sure I understand all those words," Sizzle complained.

"It means she's angry," Hookfang translated.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious!" the Terror shot back.

"Watch it, fire-squirt," Hookfang warned him. "Respect your elders."

Hiccup tried to escape, but Gobber held him back; then Astrid threatened him with her axe, which still looked sharp even though she'd just hit the stone floor with it.

"Quiet down!" Stoick shouted. "The elder has decided." Gobber set Hiccup on his right hand and Astrid on his left.

"The elder has decided what?" Hookfang asked.

"She decided who was supposed to kill you in the ring, I think," Meatlug said apologetically.

"Oh." Hookfang thought about that for a moment. "So... where's _my_ rider? Why aren't they giving _him_ the chance to kill me? Wait, what am I _saying?!"_

"And where are our riders?" Barf and Belch chorused.

"I shot their shields and sent them running in a panic," Meatlug explained. "Just like I eliminated my own rider. I guess that disqualified them. It was easy; none of them was a real threat to me. Although, to be honest, I'm glad Fishlegs wasn't any good at fighting us. It made things a lot simpler when we became friends. I didn't have to forgive him for beating me up or anything like that."

"There's something to be said for a friendship with no baggage from the past," Toothless said. "But sometimes we have to take the friends we've got, even if we do have to do a little forgiving along the way. After all, there aren't many perfect humans."

Gobber held his hook-hand over Astrid's head. The elder shook her head "no." The crowd murmured its surprise.

"Are you sorry that your rider didn't win?" Hookfang asked Stormfly.

"Hardly!" she snorted. "If she had been the winner, then either she or you would have been killed in the ring, Hiccup never would have found our nest, and we'd still be at war with the Vikings. This was another one of those moments where our entire future turned on one simple decision, and things never would have changed if that decision had gone the other way."

Gobber reluctantly pointed down with his good hand at Hiccup. The elder pointed at him, smiled, and nodded slightly. The crowd broke into excited cheers as Hiccup realized that he had completely alienated the girl he liked best. The other teens mobbed him; Fishlegs hoisted the smaller boy onto his shoulder with Snotlout's help and paraded him around the ring as Stoick pumped his fist and shouted, "That's my boy!"

"That's quite a change from the way he used to treat his son," Barf muttered.

Belch added, "All Hiccup had to do was beat up a few of us, and now his father thinks he's some kind of hero."

"Paws! What are you thinking, Toothless?" Meatlug asked.

"I was thinking," Toothless replied, "that, no matter what Hiccup did, he was never happy. When these moving pictures started, he desperately wanted to be a Viking and a dragon killer, but he always failed, he made people angry at him, and he wasn't happy. Now, he wants to be a friend to dragons instead, but everyone else thinks he's the Viking and the dragon killer that he wanted to be before. They'd be even angrier if they knew the truth, so he has to hide the truth and he's still unhappy."

"There's no pleasing those humans," Sizzle said snidely.

"In this case, he had a good reason to be unhappy," the Night Fury corrected him. "He was living a double life. He was my friend, and he had to keep that a closely-guarded secret. When we weren't together, he acted like a dragon-hater because that was what everyone else expected of him, but it was a lie. That kind of conflict can make anyone unhappy. I hate seeing him like that. Play!"

"Yeah, yes," Hiccup said, making an unconvincing show of being enthusiastic about his victory. "I can't wait. I am so..." The scene jumped to the cove. "...leaving! We're leaving. Let's pack up. Looks like you and me are taking a little vacation. Forever."

"What brought that on?" Meatlug burst out.

"I guess all that unhappiness, and the strain of living a double life, really got to him," Toothless answered. "He couldn't pursue his chosen mate without losing at dragon training and disappointing his father, and he couldn't please his father without defeating and alienating his chosen mate. He really couldn't win... so he chose not to play anymore."

"Where was he going to go?" Sizzle wondered.

"I honestly have no idea," the Night Fury said. "He knew that I could provide all the fish he'd ever need, so maybe he thought we'd fly away into the wilderness and live there, just the two of us."

"Can a human live without other humans around?" Hookfang asked.

Toothless shook his head. "Again, I don't know. They're pretty resilient, and he was used to getting along without much support from friends or family anyway. But humans need to stay warm in the winter, and I couldn't help him very much there. If a piece of my flying rig broke or wore out, how could he fix it? Who would fix _him_ if he got hurt or sick? Running away probably wasn't such a great idea, especially in the long run. Maybe it was a good thing that your rider messed up his plans, Stormfly."

Hiccup opened his basket to make sure everything he wanted was there, then panicked when he realized that Astrid was sitting on the rock next to him.

"And how, exactly, did she get into the cove without you noticing her, Toothless?" Hookfang demanded.

"She was very, very quiet," the Night Fury said with a hint of embarrassment, "and I wasn't expecting anyone else but Hiccup. I figured he was bringing me my daily meal in his basket, the way he always did. I wasn't checking the area for intruders."

"Sloppy," Hookfang said dismissively. "She could have cut your head off."

"She didn't know I was there, either," Toothless protested.

Sizzle added, "That's probably because she wasn't looking for a dragon in that cove, just like you weren't looking for another human."

"In fact," Stormfly said, "if you include Hiccup, all three of them were sloppy. But she's got her throwing axe. I'm not sure I'm going to like what happens next."

"Oh, I think _you're_ going to like it just fine," Toothless said archly. "Your rider? Not so much."

"I want to know what's going on," Astrid was saying. "No one just gets as good as you, especially you!"

"I see fear in his eyes," Meatlug said sympathetically. "He's really afraid of her!"

"I think he's afraid of what will happen if she finds out about me," Toothless corrected her.

"I'd say it's both," Stormfly decided. Astrid grabbed his riding vest; then she heard a sound and slammed him to the ground.

"Stormfly, you didn't pick a very nice person to be your rider," Sizzle said quietly.

"She changed," Stormfly said, "and from what I'm seeing, I'm very glad she did." They watched in stunned silence as Astrid twisted Hiccup's wrist, threw him to the ground, kicked him, and dropped her axe-handle on his abdomen. "And _that's_ for everything else!"

His cry of pain roused Toothless. When she saw him, she threw Hiccup to the ground again, but this time she was trying to protect him from this unknown monster that was suddenly roaring and charging at her.

"Run for it, skinny lady!" Hookfang cheered. _"Now_ you're gonna get it!" But Astrid didn't run. She drew back her axe for a decapitating strike... and Hiccup leaped at her, wrestled the axe out of her hands, and threw it aside.

 _"Huh?"_ Hookfang couldn't believe his eyes. "Where did he get the muscle to do that?"

"He was motivated by panic," Toothless explained, "and she wasn't expecting him to do it, so he surprised her. At least, I think that's what happened."

"Now _she's_ the one with fear in her eyes!" Barf grinned.

"And Hiccup is protecting _her!"_ Belch nodded with a matching grin. "Instant role reversal!"

"You just scared him," Hiccup was saying.

 _"She_ scared _you?"_ Stormfly and Hookfang chorused.

"Funny, _you_ don't look scared, Toothless!" Sizzle added with a grin.

 _"I_ scared _him?"_ Astrid asked in shocked disbelief. "Who is 'him?' "

Hiccup nervously made the formal introductions between the dragon and the dragon-slayer. "Astrid, Toothless. Toothless, Astrid."

Toothless snarled at her, "If you _ever_ lay a finger on my human friend again, I'll..."

"You'll what?" Hookfang asked.

"It was an open-ended threat," the Night Fury explained.

"Did you follow through on it?" Meatlug asked him. They watched Astrid's face harden as she turned and ran.

Toothless had to chuckle. "Hoo-boy, did I ever!"


	8. Chapter 8

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 8

"Are you two about to get in trouble?" Sizzle asked as they watched a bitterly resentful Astrid running away from the cove. If she told her village about Hiccup and Toothless, the consequences would probably mean exile for the human and death for the dragon.

As if he heard the Terror's comment, Hiccup sang, "Dat da-dah, we're dead."

"Oh, no, we're not," Toothless rumbled as he turned and looked for a good place for a quick take-off.

"What were you planning?" Stormfly asked.

"I knew that she meant to harm us somehow," Toothless replied. "I also knew that my human friend didn't want any harm to come to her. So my plan was to give her an attitude adjustment. She needed to change her mind about me and about Hiccup, and a nice scenic view of the trees and the coastline wouldn't be enough to make that happen. I had something a little bit more drastic in mind."

"Fire?" Hookfang asked hopefully.

"No, she'd expect that from a dragon," the Night Fury answered. "I wasn't going to play into her preconceived notions of who we are. It's like Hiccup said - everything she knew about us was wrong. So I was going to set her right, instead of giving her the same-old, same-old."

They watched Astrid running at breakneck speed through the forest. She leaped up onto a fallen tree, jumped... and kept going up as Toothless caught her shoulder pads and carried her off. She screamed in panic.

"Now you're not so brave, are you, mighty dragon-slayer girl!" Hookfang chuckled.

"I admit, I used to love the sound of Vikings screaming in the morning," Barf nodded.

"It sounded like... victory!" Belch chimed in. Toothless carried her to the tip of the tallest tree and dropped her; she caught herself on a branch and hung there, well over a hundred feet above the ground.

"Did that change her attitude?" Meatlug wondered.

"Not even close," Toothless shrugged. "But I had to put her in a position where riding me was her only option, and that seemed like a good way to get the show started."

Astrid had changed from fearful to angry in half a moment's time. "Hiccup! Get me _down_ from here!"

"You have to give me a chance to explain," Hiccup nearly pleaded.

"Oh, skip the useless words!" Hookfang urged him. "Just give her a little fire - not enough to kill her, just enough to singe her hair and smudge her makeup. She'll stop giving orders quickly enough!"

"But that wouldn't change her mind about dragons," Toothless objected.

"So what _was_ your plan?" Stormfly wondered.

"It was a two-stage plan," Toothless said. "I couldn't change her mind as long as her mind was closed. So, first, I had to break her. I'll admit, I had a little too much fun with that part."

"Break her?" Hookfang wondered. "How do you break a Viking with stubbornness issues?"

"Well, let me put it this way," Toothless explained with a predatory grin. "I _wasn't_ going to rub under her chin!"

"I am _not_ listening to _anything_ you have to say!" Astrid was snarling.

"You weren't kidding about her mind being closed," Meatlug nodded.

"Then I won't speak," Hiccup answered. "Just let me show you. Please, Astrid." She looked straight down and realized that she didn't have many options. She made her way inward on the branch, climbed up onto it, and reached for Toothless' flying gear. He snarled, "Remember what I said about not hitting my friend!" Hiccup reached to help her, and she swatted his hand away.

"Well, she can't say I didn't warn her," Toothless said offhandedly.

"Ooh, I bet this is going to be good!" Sizzle grinned, bobbing his head up and down in anticipation.

"What was Hiccup planning? Do you know?" Meatlug asked.

"I suppose he just wanted to take her for a ride in the sky and impress her with how much fun it was," Toothless answered her. "Apparently, he thought that would be enough to change her mind. That's one thing about him - he always assumes the best about people, even when it's unwarranted. He avoids making enemies that way, but it gets him into trouble way too often."

The girl hesitantly climbed onto Toothless' back, doing her best not to touch Hiccup. "Now get me down," she ordered.

"Okay," Toothless commented sourly, "if that's what you really want..."

"Toothless, down! Gently!" Hiccup said. "See? Nothing to be afraid of."

 _"At first!"_ all the watching dragons chorused with glee. On the flat panel, Toothless spread his wings and shifted his weight, and the bent-over treetop launched them into the sky like a catapult. The background music shifted to the same wild theme that had played when Toothless first took off with Hiccup clinging to his tail.

"Toothless! What is wrong with you? Bad dragon!" Hiccup shouted. Astrid could do nothing but scream in terror again, and overcome her reluctance to touch Hiccup; now she was clinging to him for dear life. Hiccup tried to reassure her. "Ha! He's not usually like this... oh, no." Then the Night Fury folded one wing and rolled to the right, and they plunged straight down.

"Scream, dragon-fighter! Scream like a scared little girl!" Hookfang couldn't get enough of this. "We love it when you scream!"

Stormfly was irritated. "Can I remind you that you're talking about my rider and my best human friend?"

"You're the one who said she changed," Hookfang retorted. "I'm mocking the girl she used to be, not the girl she is now."

"That's a technicality," Stormfly snapped.

Belch shook his head. "You have to admit, she was quite a jerk before she changed her mind."

When they reached the ocean, Toothless didn't stop, but plunged both his riders into the ice-cold water three quick times in a row. "Toothless, what are you doing?" Hiccup demanded. "We need her to like us!"

"Were you sure that your plan would work?" Meatlug asked him.

"I was sure that _my_ plan was better than _his_ plan," Toothless answered. "His judgement was clouded by his attraction to the girl, so I had to do the thinking for the both of us."

Now the Night Fury zoomed back upwards, but only to gain some altitude so he could pull his next maneuver safely. That maneuver was a wild mix of rolls and flat spins that made some of the dragons dizzy just watching it. "And now the spinning," Hiccup said in a bored tone, as though he went through this kind of aerial insanity on a regular basis. "Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile."

Toothless' eyes went wide for a moment, but he quickly returned to normal.

 _"What_ did he just call you?" Barf demanded.

"Useless?" Belch asked. "Isn't that what the other humans called _him?"_

"Is that what he really thought of you?" Hookfang wondered.

"He thanked me later," Toothless said to the other dragons. "But he really had no idea of what I was trying to do."

As they spun and dove seaward again, Astrid finally hit her breaking point. "Okay, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Just get me off of this thing!"

On the panel, Toothless suddenly smiled. The Toothless who was watching explained, "There! She said the magic word!"

" 'I'm sorry' was the magic word?" Hookfang asked, confused. "I would have held out for something better, like, 'I surrender.' "

"She admitted that she was wrong," the Night Fury went on. "That was what mattered. No one will ever change their path as long as they're convinced that they're already going the right way. She had to break before I could put her back together in a better way. Now she was broken; it was time for Part Two of my plan."

"And how did you do that?" Sizzle asked.

"I gave her a very small taste of the _good_ side of what it's like to ride a dragon," Toothless said. "Watch!" Just like that, their wild ride stopped, the out-of-control black demon turned into an obedient winged steed, and the equally wild background music changed to a peaceful theme.

He took them up to the clouds, not in an insane zoom climb, but in a gradual ascent that brought them just beneath the cloud layer. Astrid's curiosity overcame her earlier resentment and terror. She reached into the clouds and felt their tiny drops of moisture on her hand, and allowed herself to smile. Then she let go with both hands and gave herself over to the feelings of flight, as Hiccup also smiled at her reaction.

"See?" Toothless said to his friends. "All of a sudden, she's not begging to 'get off of this thing.' Now she'd like to stay for a while."

Stormfly was riveted to the screen. "So _that's_ how you did it! The old 'touching the clouds' trick. When I take my new hatchlings for a ride on my back, and they start acting up, that's the best way to settle them down."

Toothless nodded. "When your rider had gone for a few minutes without screaming or giving any orders, I knew I was doing something right, so I kept on doing it."

The sun went down; the sky darkened; and the Night Fury gave no sign of ending their flight. He took them up through the clouds to places where only dragons go. The Northern Lights broke out and shone down on them as they glided silently through a landscape of white. Then Toothless found the hole in the clouds that he'd been looking for, and Astrid forgot the last of her fears at the sight of her village from the air. The Night Fury couldn't see what the two riders were doing on his back, but Hiccup seemed to be contented, and that was good. He glided next to the island that he'd so recently tried to attack, and hoped that the peace that his friend and the female had found on his back would continue.

"All right, I admit it. This is pretty cool," she finally said. "It's... amazing! He's amazing." She reached down and patted the side of his head. He grinned.

"I win!" Toothless crowed as he watched the screen. "Dragons 1, Dragon-fighters 0, and I didn't even have to hurt her."

"That's the same way Hiccup won in the training ring," Stormfly realized. "He overcame all of us, and he never hurt us. Maybe Hiccup was rubbing off on you."

"It's very possible," the Night Fury admitted.

"Rubbing?" Barf snorted. "Like a chin-rub? I see what you did there!" Belch chuckled; Stormfly groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Can you tell me something?" Meatlug asked. "What if she didn't break? What if she'd stayed stubborn and angry? What would you have done?"

"Paws!" For a moment, Toothless' face hardened. "I guess I would have taken her for another thrill-ride, only even crazier. If that didn't work... then I would have done whatever it takes to protect Hiccup. In the cove, I was ready to pounce on her. At this point in the story, I was over water, it was dark, and no one ever would have known if a certain dragon-fighter had gone into the drink, weighted down with metal shoulder pads and all those spikes on her skirt."

Meatlug and Stormfly were both aghast. "You would have _killed_ her?"

"No," Toothless said quickly. "She deserved it in the beginning, but I know that's not what Hiccup wanted. But I definitely would have given her a scare before I rescued her. Blowing a few bubbles never hurt anyone. If she still put up a fight after that, then I'd have dunked her again and again until she finally broke."

"Somebody needs to tell him that Vikings have stubbornness issues," Hookfang stage-whispered to Stormfly.

"Then I guess I would have pushed those stubbornness issues to the limit," Toothless decided, "and found out if that particular dragon-fighter was willing to choose life with humility over death with hatred. Those would have been her choices, and I promise you, I would have protected Hiccup, no matter who else got hurt. Honestly, I'm glad it didn't come to that."

"Do you still feel that way about her?" Meatlug asked.

"Of course not!" the Night Fury replied. "She's changed. I still don't like it when she hits him in the arm, but he seems to be getting used to that, so I suppose it's not that bad. She has put herself in the category of 'People Whom Hiccup Likes,' and those people are under my protection, almost as much as Hiccup is. Unless she totally reverts to her old ways, she has nothing to fear from me."

"While we're on the subject," Hookfang cut in, "how do you feel about _my_ rider?"

"I suppose you all want to know the answer to that question," Toothless said, and all the other dragons nodded. "For starters, they're all in the 'People Whom Hiccup Likes' category, so I'd never harm any of them now. Meatlug, your rider is probably the one who's the least threatening to Hiccup, and he's shown me proper respect on the few times he's ridden me, so I'm on pretty good terms with him. He just needs to lighten up on giving me nonsense orders."

"Nonsense orders? What do you mean?" Meatlug wondered.

"Well, do you remember that time when you ate the magnetic rocks, and you flew away with Hiccup's metal leg stuck to you? Fishlegs got on my back so we could overtake you, and he had the _nerve_ to ask me for 'more Night and less Fury.' As if I'd ever honor a request like that! What was he _thinking?_ Am I even capable of flying that way? I don't think so! If you're going to sit in my saddle, then you're going to get the whole package, just like Astrid did!"

He turned to face Hookfang. "Your rider rode me when he stupidly got thrown off your back onto Outcast Island, and Hiccup went to rescue him. I can't think of any other reason I'd let him stay on my back for more than five seconds. I'm glad that you and he get along so well, but his attitude totally rubs me the wrong way."

"What's wrong with his attitude?" Hookfang asked. "He seems pretty normal to me. For a Viking, that is."

"He wants to be the boss all the time!" Toothless burst out.

"Yeah, he's got that delusion," the Nightmare nodded, "but it's no big deal. Every time he tries to boss me around, I just ignore him, or do the opposite of whatever he says. Someday he'll get the idea that I'm the boss and he isn't."

Toothless turned and stage-whispered to Stormfly, "Somebody needs to tell him that Vikings have stubbornness issues." Stormfly snorted and tried not to laugh out loud. Hookfang scowled.

"As for your riders," Toothless said to Barf and Belch, "they're both out of their minds."

"Tell us something we _don't_ know!" Barf chuckled.

"Anyway, I can't trust them to use my flight gear correctly," the Night Fury went on. "If I gave them enough time, they'd probably put me into a death spiral or something. Them riding me is just bad news waiting to happen. They've helped Hiccup out of a jam a few times, so I'd never do anything bad to them, but I prefer to keep them at a wing's distance from me, just to be on the safe side."

Belch looked thoughtful. "As smart as you are, I'll bet you could put on a 'crazy' act that would put those two to shame! Have you ever tried it?"

"If you do," Barf added, "I'd love to watch."

"Forget it!" Toothless burst out. "The last thing I want to do is pretend I'm just like them. They'd probably learn something from me, and the whole world would be worse off. You can share your insanity secrets with them if you want to, but I would _not_ love to watch. In fact, if you do it, let me know so I can take Hiccup a hundred miles away, so he'll be safe."

Finally, he looked down at Sizzle. "You nodded your head when I asked if you all wanted to know how I feel about your riders. You don't even _have_ a rider!"

"Well," Sizzle said apologetically, "there's this mouse without a tail, named Reepicheep, who wants to ride on my back sometimes. I'm not sure if I should let him."

"That's from a totally different dragon story," Toothless said firmly. "I'm not going there. Let's get back to our own story. Play!"

Toothless was gliding silently through the night. Astrid realized, "Hiccup, your final exam is tomorrow! You know you're going to have to kill - " She stopped herself and murmured in his ear, "...kill a dragon!"

"Don't remind me," Hiccup moaned.

"Hey, she got the idea!" Sizzle exclaimed. "She isn't just thinking differently about Toothless; she's changed her mind about all of us!"

"No one ever called her stupid," Stormfly said proudly.

"My rider did, once or twice," Hookfang rebutted her.

"And how many hundreds of people and dragons call _him_ stupid?" the Nadder shot back. "Anyway, she sure changed a lot in a short amount of time. When she got up that morning, killing dragons was all she ever wanted to do. Now she thinks it's a bad idea. Who knew that humans could be so flexible in what they believe?"

"Especially the ones with stubbornness issues!" Belch smirked.

Suddenly, on the flat panel, they heard the calls of nearby dragons. Toothless' eyes contracted to fearful slits and he went into a fast dive. They soon found themselves in the middle of a great flock of dragons. All of them except Toothless were carrying some kind of prey in their claws.

"Hookfang, are you sure you miss the bad old days?" Meatlug asked.

"Well, I sure don't miss that part," the Nightmare admitted. Then the flock went into a dive, straight into a maze of fog-wreathed sea stacks, and Astrid nearly screamed again. They swerved and dipped until a great, red-glowing island came into view through the mist.

"Home sweet home. _Not!"_ Meatlug grunted. "Oh, how I hated that place!"

"It wasn't a bad place for dragons to live," Stormfly added. "But the landlady..."

The dragons dove into a narrow passage that soon opened out into a huge cavern. Toothless was looking down into the glowing mist with a look that approached pure terror.

"What are you so afraid of?" Barf asked him.

"It's not like you never went into that nest before," Belch nodded.

"The queen tries to eat any dragon who comes back without enough food," Toothless explained nervously, even though he knew that these images were from the past. "The Night Fury never steals food. Do the math! Every time I flew into that nest, I had a bull's-eye on my tail." In the moving images, Toothless broke away from the rest of the dragons and found a hiding place as quickly as he could. They watched a young Gronckle cough up one small fish... and, a moment later, pay with his life for displeasing the Queen.

"I hope that wasn't a relative of yours," Toothless said softly to Meatlug.

"I didn't recognize her," the Gronckle said with a shudder. "She must have been hatched after the Vikings captured me and imprisoned me."

Then the queen caught a whiff of the humans and lunged at them. Toothless made a desperate escape, which succeeded only because an unfortunate Zippleback got in the queen's way and became her meal instead. The Night Fury flapped up and out of the volcanic island and made a full-speed beeline back to Berk.


	9. Chapter 9

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 9

"No, it totally makes sense. It's like a giant beehive. They're the workers, and that's their queen. It controls them," Astrid was saying as they approached Berk.

"What makes sense?" Hookfang asked the flat panel. "What was she talking about?"

"They skipped a few of Hiccup's words," Toothless explained. "He had just asked, 'Why would the dragons stay in that cave when the giant dragon eats them? Why would they give up all their food like that? It doesn't make any sense.' "

"Okay, that makes sense," the Nightmare nodded.

"But she was wrong about the queen dragon," Meatlug said firmly. "That monster wasn't like a queen bee at all! The queen bee lays all the eggs; she keeps the hive alive. The queen dragon was more of a parasite on the nest, taking without giving. A beehive without a queen bee will quickly die out; our nest without _that_ queen would have been a lot better off."

Astrid went on, "Let's find your dad."

"No! No!" Sizzle shouted at the screen, flapping his wings in agitation. "Bad idea! Very bad!"

"Don't bring the head dragon-slayer to the nest!" Meatlug roared.

"No, no! Not yet," Hiccup said, as though agreeing with them. "They'll kill Toothless. Astrid, we have to think this through carefully."

"Yes! Think carefully!" Stormfly urged him. "Take a few months so you get it right. There's no hurry."

"How would bringing the Vikings to the nest result in them killing you, Toothless?" Barf asked.

"The chief would want to know how Hiccup found the nest and how he got there," Toothless answered. "That trail would lead straight back to me, and nowhere else. I'm glad Hiccup was thinking clearly this time, even though it meant disagreeing with his chosen mate again."

Astrid was astonished. "Hiccup, we just discovered the dragons' nest - the thing we've been after since Vikings first sailed here. And you want to keep it a secret? To protect your... pet dragon? Are you serious?!"

 _"YES!"_ all the dragons chorused.

"Yes," Hiccup said, with absolute certainty and steel in his voice.

"And I'm not his pet dragon!" Toothless added. "I'm his friend!"

"I guess she still doesn't completely get it," Stormfly said sadly.

"Judging by her face," Meatlug added, "I don't think she's used to being contradicted."

"Especially by Hiccup!" Belch chimed in.

Astrid recovered her composure. "Okay. Then what do we do?

"Just give me until tomorrow," Hiccup answered. "I'll figure something out."

"What did he come up with?" Stormfly asked Toothless.

"I'm not sure," Toothless replied. "Maybe that disaster in the training ring the next day was supposed to be part of his grand plan, and it just went wrong."

"No argument on the 'went wrong' part," Hookfang nodded. "I almost killed him!"

"And I almost killed you," the Night Fury agreed.

"We didn't see that part," Meatlug said. "We just heard a lot of scary noises while we were locked in our cells. What happened in the ring that day?"

"I'm sure you're about to see the whole thing," Toothless said as he turned back to the flat panel. "Every miscue, every mistake, every misunderstanding... it was not a bright, shining moment for any of us."

Astrid thought for a moment. "Okay." Then she punched Hiccup in the arm. "That's for kidnapping me!"

"Hit her back!" Hookfang urged Hiccup's image. "Be a male! Don't let her humiliate you like that!"

Hiccup looked to Toothless, who was taking a drink at the water's edge. "So... hit her back!" the dragon said, and returned to his drink.

Then the girl kissed him on the cheek. "That's for... everything else." She looked embarrassed and ran away.

Now Hookfang looked confused. "Was she trying to eat him, and then she had second thoughts?"

"You imbecile!" Stormfly scolded him. "That's called a kiss. It's a human gesture that means affection. She still doesn't get it about us dragons, but she's completely changed her mind about Hiccup."

"Nobody ever made that gesture to _my_ rider," the Nightmare said, miffed.

"Yeah, and there are some good reasons for that!" Meatlug smirked. "Trust me on this one; I'm the one with the sensitive nose."

On the panel, Toothless stepped up next to his human companion. "Be patient, my friend," he burbled. "She's changing her mind about you. You'll mate with her soon enough."

"W- w- what are you looking at?" Hiccup demanded.

"Is that how he thanks you for trying to encourage him?" Hookfang burst out.

Toothless shook his head. "No, that's how he thanks me when he can't understand what I'm saying."

"Scene change!" Sizzle crowed. Now they were looking at the dragon training ring, which was surrounded by hundreds of shouting, cheering Vikings, the entire tribe of Berk.

"Oh, so beating us up has become a spectator sport now?" Meatlug said indignantly.

"Not us," Hookfang corrected her. "Just me. I think this is the part where Hiccup was supposed to kill me."

"Did he succeed?" Sizzle asked.

The other dragons glared down at him.

"It's a reasonable question!" the little dragon said, flustered. "I mean, Hiccup has been doing things right for a while, so maybe he... he..." He saw Hookfang scowling at him. "Oh. Never mind."

"Well, I can show my face in public again!" Stoick said with a chuckle.

"Why did he say that?" Barf wondered.

Belch answered, "Maybe he got a new face that wasn't so ugly."

Barf scrutinized the image on the panel. "Nope."

"No," Toothless decided. "He means he used to be ashamed because his only son wasn't much of a Viking. Now that they all think that Hiccup is a dragon-fighter, Stoick thinks his own reputation has been improved as well."

"How could a man be ashamed of his own son when the son hasn't done anything wrong?" Meatlug said sadly. "That makes so little sense, it's scary."

"The way the Vikings think of things," Stormfly reasoned, "Hiccup didn't _do_ wrong. He _was_ wrong. That's why Hiccup keeps saying, 'You just gestured to all of me' when someone is scolding him. There wasn't one single thing he could say or do that would meet with their approval."

"Except killing dragons," Hookfang added.

"Or tricking us into playing dead," Stormfly went on, "and tricking the rest of them into believing he was a mighty dragon-fighter instead of a D-spot tickler."

"Hey, wait a second!" Barf burst out. "Our riders are always talking about some guy named Loki who's good at tricking people. If Hiccup is tricking his whole tribe, then does that make him a follower of Loki?"

"He might be the best trickster in the tribe, if he's got them all fooled," Belch nodded. "Our twins like to trick people, but they've got nothing on Hiccup! Maybe we should give him more respect."

Stoick calmed the laughing crowd. "If somebody told me that, in a few short weeks, Hiccup would go from, well, being, uhh, Hiccup... to placing first in Dragon Training... well, I would have tied him to a mast and shipped him off, for fear he'd gone mad! And you know it!" The crowd cheered.

"I'd like to tie _him_ to a mast," Meatlug muttered. "How can he mock his own son in front of the entire tribe?"

"And how can the entire tribe think it's funny?" Stormfly added.

"But... here we are. And no one is more surprised, or more proud than I am." They saw Hiccup, looking hurt as the tribe laughed at his past failures. His face hardened as his father said, "Today, my boy becomes a Viking! Today, he becomes _one of us!"_

Sizzle watched all the Vikings cheering. "Does that mean every one of those people had to kill a dragon before they were considered part of the tribe?"

"It sounds that way," Toothless nodded.

"That's a lot of dead dragons," Hookfang commented.

"You could have been one of them," Stormfly shot back, "if someone other than Hiccup had won that last round of Dragon Training! Someone like my rider, for instance. Killing you would have been her final test of worthiness."

"That puts a question in my mind," Toothless said. "The Vikings' goal was for their hero to kill the dragon in the ring, but what if it had gone the other way? Hookfang, if you had killed Hiccup that day, what do you think would have happened?"

"That's an easy one," the Nightmare said with a hint of a shudder. "Remember how fast the Vikings swarmed the ring when they came after you? That's what they would have done to me if I'd killed their hero. They wanted me dead, and it didn't matter how. They wanted to watch me die at the hands of their skinny new champion, but I think they would have been almost as happy to kill me themselves before the day ended. I definitely owe Hiccup my life for that."

"They wouldn't have been happy to see Hiccup die," Meatlug observed.

"Probably not," Hookfang nodded, "but remember, these are Vikings! Most of them would rather go out in a blaze of glory than live to a ripe-old age. Dying in the ring would have been a very Viking-like ending for Hiccup. Chief Stoick would have been sad that his family line had ended, but the others would have written a song about the valiant Hiccup and the mighty dragon who slew him after a fierce fight, and both of us would have gone down in their history."

"Maybe Stoick would have taken another mate and sired another hatchling to take his place someday," Sizzle suggested.

"He hadn't taken any other mates so far," Barf interjected, "and he already thought his son was a failure. So if he meant to continue his line with a son he was proud of, he would have already done it."

"Not if he missed his former mate," Belch disagreed. "Sometimes a dragon will refuse to mate again after losing a mate that was especially dear to him. Maybe that happens with humans, too."

"Yeah, that's possible," Barf agreed. "When he was telling Hiccup about their helmets, it sounded like he still missed Hiccup's mother."

Toothless shook his head. "There's one big problem with that line of thinking. Hiccup has told me that Vikings don't marry because they're attracted to each other. They marry for duty; it's an obligation that they all owe to the tribe; and if love happens afterward, then so much the better. Stoick was the Alpha of his tribe, and one of his duties was to provide his own replacement. He'd written Hiccup off as unworthy years ago. It was just a matter of time before he would be forced to take a mate and raise up a successor for himself."

"What if he didn't?" Hookfang asked.

"Then another relative would take his place when he died or became too feeble to lead the tribe," Toothless replied. "I think that would have been _your_ rider, Hookfang."

The Nightmare's eyes went wide. "My rider could have been the Alpha?!"

"Yes," Stormfly agreed, "if you had killed Hiccup in the ring. Of course, if you'd killed Hiccup, then the other Vikings would have killed you, so Snotlout never would have become your rider, and you wouldn't have lived to see the day anyway."

Hookfang shook his head. "There sure are a lot of 'what if's swirling around the life of that one skinny little Viking."

Sizzle chimed in, "It's as though someone wrote a script all about us, with Hiccup at the very center of it."

Toothless snorted. "That's ridiculous! I mean, I don't want to be harsh, but that could never happen. It was all an amazing string of lucky breaks... or not-so-lucky, sometimes."

"Be careful with that dragon." Astrid had come up behind Hiccup instead of joining the cheering throng around the edges of the training ring.

"It's not the dragon I'm worried about," Hiccup answered, with a glance toward his father.

"Paws!" Hookfang nearly shouted. "Did I hear that right? Hiccup was more afraid of his own _father_ than he was of _me?"_

"Yes, you heard him right," Meatlug said.

"I don't get it," the Nightmare said with a shake of his huge head. "Stoick can't claw and bite, he can't fly, and he can't breathe fire. Even if he wanted to hurt his own son - and, for the moment, it looks like he doesn't - how could he be a bigger threat than I am?"

"It's because Hiccup didn't see you as a threat at all," Toothless explained. "He knew how to get along with dragons, and how to subdue us in a fight without hurting us... and without getting hurt himself. You've all seen how he reacts to the sight of a new dragon. No fear! It doesn't matter how big we are, or how powerful, or how scary-looking; to him, we're just a friend whom he hasn't met yet. That kind of self-confidence, which is right on the edge of being cocky, got its start when he learned to deal with me, and now that's how he deals with every dragon in existence. He figured it would work with you, too." The Night Fury paused. "Was he right?"

"Well... yes," Hookfang admitted. "I think we're all about to see how _that_ worked. Play!"

Astrid looked concerned. "What are you going to do?"

"Put an end to this. I have to try. Astrid, if something goes wrong... just make sure they don't find Toothless."

"I will. Just promise me it won't go wrong."

"Paws! My turn," Meatlug said. "What if something did go wrong? Toothless, would you have let Astrid take care of you and ride you, the way Hiccup did?"

Toothless hesitated. "I never thought about that. I don't know. Oh, I'd have eaten all the fish she gave me, with no complaints. But riding me? Without Hiccup?" He shivered. "Just thinking about life without Hiccup gives me the jibblies. I really don't know if I would have let her take his place."

"Even if that meant never flying again?" Stormfly pressed him.

"Flying with Hiccup isn't just flying," the Night Fury tried to explain. "It's different. It's better somehow, because he's there. Flying just for the sake of flying... it used to be enough. But Hiccup isn't the only one who has changed. I've changed, too. For me, flying means flying with Hiccup, and flying without Hiccup is pointless, like eating fish bones when there's no fish on them."

"Is that why you destroyed the automatic tail that Hiccup made for you at Snoggletog?" Meatlug asked him.

"Exactly," Toothless nodded. "I didn't want to fly without him, and I wanted him to know that. I felt kind of bad, ruining that tail when he put so much work into it. But it goes deeper than pride in his workmanship. It goes to the very heart of who I am."

"And Hiccup is in your heart?" Stormfly asked compassionately.

"Yes," the Night Fury said firmly. "When I look at him, I see myself. How could I want to be separate from him? How could I want to do anything without him? How could anyone take his place?"

Barf whispered in Belch's ear, "He's in love."

"I heard that!" Toothless exclaimed, flicking his ear flaps. "And you're wrong, but you're also right. I'm not 'in love' with Hiccup in any kind of romantic way. But I do love him, with all that I am. Real love isn't about emotions, anyway."

"It's not?" Belch asked.

"Of course it isn't!" the black dragon shot back. "Feelings come and go; even the strongest passions never last for more than a few years. If love comes and goes like that, then it's not real, because real love lasts forever. Real love is about commitment, not about emotions. Real love isn't something you feel; it's something you do. If you get the feelings, too, then so much the better, but that's a nice bonus that life gives you sometimes. It's not the real thing."

Meatlug had to smile. "It sounds like you're quite a love expert, Toothless."

Toothless shrugged. "When I was younger, I took some lessons from the trolls in the Valley of the Living Rock. But that's enough about me. Shall we get back to the moving pictures? Play!"

Gobber stepped around the corner. "It's time, Hiccup," he said jovially. "Knock 'em dead."

"He sounds pretty confident in Hiccup's ability to kill me," Hookfang commented.

"They're all confident in him now," Toothless replied, "even though he hasn't landed a single blow on a dragon in his entire life. Except one," he quickly added, "and nobody saw that one except for him and me."

"So they all think he's something that he isn't?" Belch asked. When Toothless nodded, both heads of the Zippleback chorused, "Loki!"

Hiccup looked mournful as he stepped into the ring, gazed at his helmet, and put it on.

"It fits him," Stormfly noticed, "but somehow, it looks like it's too big for him. Just like the responsibility of being a classic Viking didn't fit him."

He made his way to the rack of weapons, heaved a shield onto his arm, and selected a dagger for his weapon.

"Hmm," Stoick murmured to Gobber. "I would have gone for the hammer."

"Does he think Hiccup is suddenly strong enough to swing a full-sized hammer?" Barf exclaimed.

"He's thinking of Hiccup as a Viking warrior," Belch said. "Details like lack of muscles aren't even entering his mind."

"How could they?" Sizzle chimed in. "The chief's head is already full of muscle!" All the dragons except Toothless and Hookfang snorted.

Hiccup drew a deep breath and let it out. "I'm ready." The Vikings in charge of the cell door leaned into their levers, the beam that held the door shut was pulled upward...

...and with a crash and a roar, Hookfang burst out of his confinement, aflame from nose to tail, and very, very angry.

His first thought was not attack, but escape. He crawled halfway around the ring walls, unleashed a blast of flame that the spectators barely dodged, and climbed onto the roof chains, looking for a gap he could fit through. Only then did he notice the tiny human waiting for him on the ring floor.

Meatlug considered the look on Hiccup's face. "I don't think he was as ready for you as he thought he was."

"Why not?" Stormfly asked. "He'd seen Nightmares before. These moving pictures started with him slamming his door shut to keep out a blast of Nightmare fire, and that same dragon, or one just like him, almost killed Hiccup before Stoick intervened. Why does he suddenly look so nervous, or even scared?"

"It's because he's alone in the ring with _me,"_ Hookfang decided. "You have to admit, I can look pretty scary when I want to."

"What was going through your mind?" Toothless asked him.

"Well, I wanted to get out more than anything else," the Nightmare answered. "They didn't let me out of my prison cell every few days for exercise and the chance to beat up some Vikings, like they did with most of the rest of you. They captured me, stuck me in that cell, and _left_ me there until they were ready for their hero's big moment.

"When I saw that hero, I knew I was supposed to fight him and kill him. That's what Vikings do, right? They kill dragons! Like we said earlier, I had a feeling that, even if I won, I wouldn't live to see the sunset. But what else was I supposed to do? Surrender and let him kill me? Hardly! If they wanted a fight, then I'd give them a fight to remember!"

Meatlug had a question. "What did you think when you saw how small the Vikings' hero was?"

"I didn't notice the difference," Hookfang admitted. "To me, they're all small."

The huge dragon settled to the ground with a subdued snarl. The spectators all around the ring grew quiet as their hero and their nemesis came face to face. Someone shouted, "Go on, Hiccup! Give it to him!" The dragon advanced on him, strong and confident. Hiccup gave way... and cast his knife and shield aside. The dragon glanced at them, puzzled.

"Did you know what he was doing?" Toothless asked.

"I thought it was some kind of trick at first," Hookfang explained. "A normal Viking would have run right at me, swinging his weapon for all he was worth. A clever one would have faked to one side, darted to the other side, and tried to stab me in the neck or chest, right where the upper scales meet the belly scales. A show-off would have cut me in the face first, so he could brag about drawing first blood. The _last_ thing he should have done was disarm himself! That's why I didn't flame him from head to toe. He was breaking all the rules, and I had no idea what he was up to, so I didn't commit myself to any kind of attack. First, I had to see what his plan was."

"It's okay, it's okay," Hiccup said soothingly, both hands outstretched and empty. The dragon had lowered his head nearly to ground level; now he looked up at Hiccup's head, or more specifically, his helmet.

With a no-turning-back look toward his father, Hiccup reached up, took off the helmet, and cast it aside. "I'm not one of them," he said firmly. Several Vikings around the ring gasped in shock; Hookfang glanced toward them, alert for trickery.

"Paws!" Meatlug shouted. "He rejected them! Now that he finally belonged to the group, he completely rejected the destiny they planned for him."

"The destiny he used to want more than anything else," Stormfly added.

"He rejected the people as well," Toothless continued. "They all heard what he said. He was casting himself adrift from his own culture, from his own family, from everything."

"Everything except dragons," Hookfang said, "and I have no idea how he thought we could help him."

"I think he meant to change their minds about us," Toothless went on. "He had no Plan B if he failed. He gambled everything on showing all those stubborn Vikings that they were wrong about us."

"That wasn't smart," Stormfly said with a shake of her head. "Doesn't he know that Vikings have stubbornness issues?"

"Hiccup is very smart," Toothless defended him, "but sometimes he could use a little more common sense. This looks like one of those times. Play!"

"Stop the fight," Stoick ordered.

"No!" Hiccup answered.

"Is that the first time he's ever contradicted his father?" Belch wondered.

"Probably," Toothless nodded, "and it took a dragon to bring out his real courage."

"I need you all to see this," Hiccup went on, hand outstretched. "They're not what we think they are. We don't have to kill them."

"Hookfang, your expression has completely changed," Meatlug noticed. "You look happy! What's with that?"

"Well, for one thing, it meant I might live to see another day," Hookfang said. "If the hero doesn't want to fight, then there can't be a battle, right? So maybe that day wasn't going to be my day to die. Also, I was... curious. I'd never heard of a Viking putting himself in a dragon's power like that. He'd thrown his weapon away, and his hand was out where I could easily bite it off. But he obviously wasn't afraid of me biting him, or of me in general. That was the first friendly face I'd seen since they captured me, even though he was a human. I'd been imprisoned and alone for what felt like forever, and now, instead of their hero being warlike, he wanted to be friendly? I responded to that. Any sane being will respond to kindness. I really needed a friend."

But Stoick leaped to his feet, bellowed, "I said, _stop the fight!"_ and slammed his war hammer against the guard rails. Hookfang heard the crash of a Viking weapon from behind him, the peace suddenly ended, and the war began again. The Nightmare had no enemies in sight except Hiccup.

"Oh, this is going to be bad," Sizzle said nervously.

 **o**

 _A/N_  
 _Shortly after posting this chapter, the story passed the 5000-view mark. Thank you, one and all._


	10. Chapter 10

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 10

At the sound of Stoick's hammer clanging against the iron bars of the training ring, every dragon winced, even though they knew they were seeing and hearing things from the past.

"Paws! Ugh! That noise!" Sizzle protested. "I'll never get used to it."

"They know we hate that noise," Meatlug agreed. "That's why they used it against us when we fought."

"At least they've stopped doing it now," Stormfly said.

"Really?" Hookfang smirked. "Tell that to Gobber! He makes that noise all day long in their metal-working building!"

"Even Hiccup does it now and then," Toothless nodded. "Sometimes it means he's making something to help me fly better. I appreciate that... but I still hate the noise."

Sizzle shook his head in irritation. "Maybe he thinks we aren't paying attention."

"Or maybe," the Night Fury guessed, "they think we don't hear the noise if we aren't right next to it. But we're just guessing. Play!"

"You know better than that, Toothless," Stormfly almost scolded him. "You, of all dragons, should know how sensitive our ears are. See?" She gestured with a wing toward the flat panel. At the sound of Stoick's metallic clang, Hookfang's eyes narrowed. It must mean a sneak attack from behind him! He instantly attacked the only human within reach, which was Hiccup. The young man screamed and ran... and, over half a mile away, Toothless heard that scream. He leaped into action.

Others were reacting as well. Stoick shoved the Vikings aside as he ran for the entrance to the ring, while Astrid used an axe to raise the portcullis enough that she could wriggle underneath it. But none were as frenzied as the Night Fury, who somehow found the strength to claw his way up and out of the cove.

"I thought you couldn't get out of there," Belch commented. "You tried everything, but you were still a prisoner in that cove!"

"I couldn't get out when it was all about me," Toothless nodded. "But to save Hiccup, I found a little extra determination that I didn't know I had."

"And that means," Meatlug concluded, "that you care more about Hiccup than you do about yourself."

After thinking for a moment, Toothless nodded. "I guess I already knew that, but no one ever put it into words before."

"Is that a proper attitude for a dragon to have?" Barf demanded.

"It's a proper attitude for _me_ to have," the Night Fury retorted without a trace of self-consciousness.

"But that's not how we dragons are supposed to think!" Belch argued. "Our rule has always been, 'Look out for Number One!' "

"Exactly," Toothless nodded, "and I'm still following that rule. I've just redefined who 'Number One' is."

Hiccup dodged a burst of Nightmare flame, then another one, but Hookfang was getting closer. Astrid expertly kicked a hammer up into her hands, then hurled it for a perfect strike at Hookfang's head.

"Ouch?" Sizzle asked him.

"Ouch," Hookfang nodded as he watched. "That part definitely was not fun. I, for one, am very glad that she wasn't the one who was supposed to fight me that day."

"She really was good with her weapons," Stormfly said. "It's a good thing she never got to use them in the war against us."

Hookfang hesitated for a moment, then turned and chased Astrid. Stoick flung the gateway open and bellowed, "This way!" Both young Vikings ran for the exit. Astrid made it; Hiccup turned back in mindless panic from another fire-shot, ran into the middle of the ring, and was instantly captured under the Nightmare's huge claws. The dragon stuck his head down and growled, "Got you at last, you deceiving little..."

That was when they heard the rising whistle that could mean only one thing. But before anyone could yell, "Night Fury! Get down!" Toothless charged at the ring, blasted a hole through the iron bars, and leaped through the hole onto Hookfang's back. Hiccup rolled clear as the dragons fought each other.

"Did you realize I'm more than twice your size?" Hookfang asked him condescendingly.

"Did _you_ realize you were trying to kill the most important human in the world?" Toothless countered. "For that matter, did you realize that I'm a Night Fury?" They watched Hookfang try to bite Toothless' foreleg; the black dragon used a hind leg to kick him halfway across the ring. As he regained his feet, Toothless put himself between Hiccup and Hookfang. Twice, the much bigger dragon tried to get around the Night Fury, and twice, Toothless blocked him and forced him back.

"I have no quarrel with you!" Hookfang roared. "Just let me have the human!"

"Over my dead body!" Toothless roared back.

"I can arrange that!" the Nightmare bellowed.

"Try it!" the Night Fury shot back. "It's the last mistake you'll ever make."

Hookfang hesitated, then did something he had never done before in his life. He backed off.

"Paws!" Meatlug called. "Hookfang, did you just give up? What was going through your mind?"

"Well, I was still a little dizzy from that hammer to the head," the Nightmare began. "I'd been tricked, or so I thought, into thinking that Hiccup was a peaceful human and maybe I could trust him. Then his father made that awful noise with his hammer, and I thought it was just another battle, with Hiccup as the bait in a trap of some kind. He was against me, Astrid was against me, all the other Vikings were against me... and all of a sudden, the Night Fury was against me, too. The whole world was against me! I'm not a wimp, but nobody can fight against the whole world. That's why I gave up and crawled away. If even the other dragons were against me, then what was the point of fighting? I guess they broke my spirit for a minute, and by the time I was thinking clearly again, it was too late. They'd pushed me back into my prison cell and shut the door."

"At least they didn't kill you," Sizzle said helpfully.

"No, but it was just a matter of time until they did kill me," Hookfang retorted. "For a few quick seconds, I thought maybe, just maybe, things had changed, and maybe I had something to hope for. But it was all a cruel trick, or so I thought. I can't tell you how discouraged I was. That's why I didn't even put up a fight when the Vikings pushed me back into my cell. Toothless had beaten me on the outside, and all of them together had beaten me on the inside. Play!"

As soon as Hookfang backed off, Hiccup tried to get Toothless to back off as well. "Go! Get out of here!" But Toothless was just grinning at his friend.

"You really didn't see the danger?" Stormfly asked incredulously.

"Honestly? No, I didn't," Toothless admitted. "I mean, I just fought off a Monstrous Nightmare; what could be more of a threat than that?"

"If you're just talking about threats to Hiccup," Meatlug said, "then you'd be right."

"And that's all I was thinking about," the Night Fury admitted. "I'd never faced a threat to myself before, except for the risk of being eaten by the Queen every time I flew into the nest. I wasn't thinking about me."

"You should have been," Hookfang said as they watched the Vikings throwing themselves into the ring with battle cries. "Go! _Go!"_ Hiccup urged him desperately.

"Weren't those Vikings paying attention?" Sizzle asked. "They just watched the Night Fury save Hiccup's life - he outfought a Monstrous Nightmare! Did they seriously think they could outfight the most dangerous dragon in existence? Half of them didn't even have weapons, and a disarmed human is a dead human!"

"For that matter," Meatlug added, "did they think the Night Fury was going to turn on Hiccup after saving him, and they had to save their alpha's son from his rescuer?"

"No," Stormfly answered sadly. "They just wanted to see a dead dragon. Hiccup was supposed to provide them with one, but he refused to kill Hookfang and he ruined their party. Now they all had a chance to catch a Night Fury instead, and that was even better. Aside from Astrid and Stoick, they'd forgotten about Hiccup already."

"I sure didn't make it easy for them, you have to admit," Toothless said as he watched himself kick and tail-whip multiple Vikings out of the way as Stoick rushed toward him. He pounced, rolled, and prepared to blast the human Alpha's head off.

"Toothless, stop! _No-o-o!"_ Hiccup screamed.

Toothless hesitated and looked back toward his friend, puzzled. In that moment, two Vikings hit the Night Fury in the head, Spitelout pinned his head to the floor, and the fight was over. Stoick stood, weaving from the impact with the dragon and the stone floor. When his eyes cleared, they were filled with a rage that approached berserker proportions.

"Put it with the others," he snarled hoarsely.

"Why didn't he kill you when he had the chance?" Meatlug asked. "After all, a dead dragon is what he wanted."

"I can't say for sure," Toothless replied, "but I think he was even angrier at Hiccup than he was at me."

Meatlug shook her huge head. "Considering how angry he always was at dragons, that must have been really something."

They saw Hiccup stumble into the darkened Mead Hall... or had he been pushed? Stoick entered, still raging. "Paws," Hookfang said.

"No, play!" Toothless cut him off. "I need to see this. I know what happened to me at this time - they shoved me into the same prison cell as Sizzle - but I have to see what happened to Hiccup."

They watched in stunned silence as Hiccup and his father went back and forth, with Hiccup trying to defend the dragons' right to exist and Stoick barely listening to a thing he said... until his son let slip the fact that he'd ridden a dragon into the nest. When Hiccup realized what he'd said, he desperately tried to talk his father out of what he knew was about to happen. Every time Stoick opened his mouth, the dragons' mouths fell open in shock a little wider, until the moment when Stoick physically threw his son halfway across the room, cast him out of the tribe, and disowned him. "You've thrown your lot in with _them!_ You're not a Viking. You're not my son."

"Paws," Toothless whimpered. For nearly a minute, no one said anything. Sizzle finally rubbed his nose against the Night Fury's paw, trying to help him feel better somehow.

At last, Toothless found his voice, although it was tight and grief-stricken. "Did I really see that? Did Stoick really do that to Hiccup?" No one answered, but they all nodded.

Toothless stared at the floor. "Why couldn't I have killed that human when I jumped him in the ring? Would've been better, for everyone."

"Not for Hiccup," Meatlug reminded him. "He loved his father."

 _"Why?!"_ Toothless exploded. "The father obviously hated his son!"

Stormfly felt like she had to disagree. "No, he just hated us dragons, and Hiccup had taken our side. It was nothing personal."

"Of course it wasn't personal!" the Night Fury said heatedly. "With Stoick, _nothing_ about Hiccup was personal! Hiccup was never like family to him. He was just a successor, a protege, a kind of wish fulfillment in the next generation... and a big disappointment all around, because he succeeded at being Hiccup instead of becoming a little Stoick."

"Very little!" Hookfang chuckled.

 _" **Shut up!** "_ Toothless snapped. "Can't you see what that scene did to Hiccup? Can't you see what it's doing to me?"

"Sorry," the Nightmare said, backing off half a step. "I wasn't thinking."

"Then take another look at that scene, and _start_ thinking," the black dragon ordered. They all stared at the frozen scene of Hiccup lying on the Mead Hall floor, as stunned from the shock of ultimate rejection as from the blow that put him there.

At last, Meatlug asked, "Toothless, what would you have done if you'd been there?"

"In the heat of the moment, I really think I would have killed him," Toothless said slowly. "Stoick, I mean. Hiccup couldn't have talked me out of it a second time. He attacked my human friend, and there's only one penalty for that."

"Taking him for a wild ride until he says he's sorry and begs for mercy?" Stormfly asked with a hint of a chuckle.

"Okay, sometimes there are _two_ penalties for attacking my human friend," the Night Fury admitted, and his mood began to soften. "But Stoick never would have begged for mercy or admitted he was wrong; not from just a wild ride, anyway. Not only that, but Stoick's offense was worse than Astrid's, because Astrid wasn't his father. Family are supposed to treat each other better than that. They're supposed to look out for each other."

"And Stoick wouldn't look out for Hiccup, so you would have looked out for him instead?" Barf asked.

"Yeah, something like that," Toothless said.

"Then I'm glad you weren't there," Hookfang said softly, "because if you'd killed Stoick, then Stoick never could have led that expedition to our island, the Queen would still be ruling the nest, and we'd all still be at war with each other."

Toothless glanced at him, startled. "When I told you to start thinking, that's not at all what I had in mind. But you're right. I guess everything that happened, even that awful scene, had to play out just the way we saw it, or Hiccup never could have changed our history."

Hookfang nodded. "Even I can learn something new, if you beat me over the head with it a few times." Sizzle smirked and started to say something, but the Night Fury shot him a deadly glance, and the tiny dragon decided to hold his peace for now.

After a few more seconds, Toothless said, "Play!" They watched Stoick turn his back on Hiccup, storm out of the Hall, and order, "Ready the ships!"

"And that's it?" Barf burst out.

"He just disowned his only son, and now he walks away to plan a dragon raid without even looking back, just like that?" Belch added.

"That's one serious dragon-hater," Sizzle nodded.

"He's just a hater, and nothing else," Hookfang concluded.

"That's not totally true," Meatlug objected. "Didn't he love his late wife? It sure sounded like he missed her during that nighttime conversation with Hiccup."

"Okay, so he loved one person. Big deal!" Hookfang said with a shake of his huge head. "It's just not normal for a father to turn his back on his own son, just because the son doesn't measure up to the standard that the father created for him."

They glanced at Toothless to gauge his reaction. The Night Fury looked very, very sad, but he didn't agree with them. "There are some things I know about Stoick that you don't know yet," he said. "You'll probably see those things in a few minutes, if we keep watching the moving pictures. You may change your minds about him once you know the whole story."

"You're _defending_ the man?" Stormfly couldn't believe her ears. "A second ago, you were ready to fireball him in the face!"

"I'm standing up for the truth," Toothless replied. "I have to do that. I'm a Night Fury! Even though the man's actions in that scene made me sick to my stomach, that's only one side of him. I said I was tempted to kill him, and I meant it... but looking back on the whole situation, I'm glad I wasn't offered the chance to do it. Stoick is a complex person, not a one-dimensional cut-out, and I don't think I'm wise enough to judge him."

"What if we got a jury of his peers?" Hookfang pressed him. "Could they judge him?"

"If he was being charged with a crime, then yes, they could," Toothless said. "But we're charging him with being a heartless jerk, and that's not a crime, the last time I looked. If it was, then Stoick wouldn't be the only Viking who would deserve to be punished. Based on the way they treated Hiccup, we'd have to banish almost every Viking on this island."

"So you're giving Stoick a pass because he was no different than any other Viking?" Belch wondered.

"No, I'm giving him a pass because of some things you haven't seen yet," the black dragon answered. "Keep watching." They watched as the island of Berk turned itself inside-out, loading all of its weapons into every ship that the dragons hadn't sunk yet. More than two dozen longships began to settle deeper into the water under the weight of battering rams, catapult parts, small arms, and every Viking who could swing an axe, men and women alike.

Then they saw Toothless struggling with a leather strap that held his mouth shut. Two more Vikings slapped a thick wooden collar around his neck. The collar was chained to ring bolts in a wooden platform, which was lowered by crane onto the largest ship. Hiccup watched from above, broken-hearted, unable to intervene.

"He knew what they would probably do to me when they were done fighting the nest," Toothless explained.

Stoick glanced up at Hiccup for a moment, then pointedly turned his back on him once again. He leaned over toward Toothless and growled, "Lead us home, _devil!"_

"What a nice guy," Meatlug grimaced.

"What does he know about devils?" Hookfang asked.

"It takes one to know one," Stormfly said with disgust.

"Just keep watching," Toothless told them.

The fleet sailed away toward its destiny. Hiccup just stood there, motionless, staring, long after the last sail had vanished over the horizon. Then they saw Astrid standing behind him, looking almost as mournful as he was. She stood beside him in silence for a second before shaking her head and saying, "It's a mess."

"Thank you, Sister Obvious," Sizzle muttered.

She proceeded to remind him of everything he'd just lost. "Thank you for summing that up," he sighed. "Why couldn't I have killed that dragon when I found him in the woods? Would've been better, for everyone."

"Toothless, that's almost exactly what you said about killing Stoick!" Stormfly realized.

"I suppose the two of us were starting to think alike," Toothless said.

"That sounds scary," Barf and Belch decided in unison.

"Why?" the Night Fury asked them. "The two of you think alike all the time! What's wrong with two similar minds working the same way?"

"The scary part," Barf said, "is that anyone might think like Hiccup. The inside of his mind must be a scary place."

"You only say that because you don't know him like I do," Toothless said. "But let me watch this scene. I want to know what made him decide to come after me after he'd been completely beaten into the ground."

"Yup, the rest of us would have done it," Astrid said matter-of-factly. "So why didn't you?"

"I don't know," Hiccup shrugged. "I couldn't."

"That's not a answer," she hounded him.

"W- why is this so important to you all of a sudden?" he demanded.

"Because I want to remember what you say right now."

"Why was that a big deal to her?" Meatlug asked Stormfly.

"Because Hiccup had hit bottom," the Nadder replied. "Like she said, he'd just lost everything. He was as low as a human could go. She wanted to hear his answer because his words would be a window into his heart, and it was his heart that she was beginning to be drawn to. She wanted to see who the real Hiccup was, now that everything that he valued externally had been stripped away."

"Of, for the love of... I was a coward! I was weak! I wouldn't kill a dragon!"

"He said, 'wouldn't!' " Sizzle realized.

"You said, 'wouldn't' that time," Astrid also realized.

"Oh, whatever! I wouldn't! Three hundred years, and I'm the first Viking who wouldn't kill a dragon." He turned away, unwilling to look her in the eye after admitting to such an epic failure.

"Wait a second," Hookfang said. "How did he know there weren't any others like him during those three hundred years?"

Toothless answered that. "I'm sure that, if there were any other Vikings who wouldn't do what Vikings were expected to do, their names would have gone down in infamy. Children would be raised on stories about Bjorn the Coward, or Fangert the Fearful, and how no one should grow up to be like them. If Hiccup hadn't gone after me, they probably would have used _his_ name that way... if any of them had survived, that is."

Astrid didn't give up. "First to ride one, though. So..."

Hiccup's eyes went a bit wider as he realized that, maybe, he wasn't the failure that everyone else considered him to be.

"That's how it started!" Toothless exclaimed, coming fully alert. "That's the point where he started coming up from rock-bottom! And Astrid is the one who made it happen! Stormfly, remind me to cough up a nice fish in your rider's lap the next time I see her. She earned it right there."

Hiccup turned back to her, still in failure-admitting mode, but no longer totally defeated. "I wouldn't kill him because he looked as frightened as I was. I looked at him, and I saw myself."

"Wow," Toothless whispered. "So _that's_ why he let me live."

"That is seriously intense," Hookfang nodded.

"It's exactly like you were saying a minute ago, Toothless," Meatlug said. "Your minds really _were_ working like one mind! From the very beginning, it's like you were..."

"It's like we were one, from the moment we laid eyes on each other," Toothless finished for her. "I knew it after a while, but the fact that he knew it, too... wow. Just wow."

"I bet he's really frightened now," the girl went on. "What are you going to do about it?"

"What _could_ he do?" Sizzle asked. "One skinny Viking reject against a whole tribe?"

"You still don't know what he's capable of," Toothless corrected him.

"Besides," Stormfly said, "I think I know what's about to happen, and now it all makes sense."

Hiccup shrugged. "Eh, probably something stupid."

"Good," Astrid pressed him, "but you've already done that."

That was when Hiccup's face came back to life. "Then something crazy!" He turned and took off at a run.

Sizzle realized that everyone except himself and Toothless was edging toward the flat panel. "What did he come up with?" Sizzle demanded. "Did it work?"

"Actually," Meatlug said with a growing smile, "I think I know exactly what he came up with. So do Stormfly, and Hookfang, and Barf and Belch. This is the part where we come back into the story. It's the part where Hiccup really starts to act like Hiccup."

The little Terror was beside himself with curiosity. "So? What did he do? What did he do?"

"He gave up on being a Viking and went back to doing what he does best," Stormfly told him. "Namely, being Hiccup."


	11. Chapter 11

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 11

As the dragons looked on, the fleet of Viking longships made their way into the dense fog that always surrounded their island nest.

Gobber was tripping over his words as he tried to ask Stoick what their plan was, without making it sound like he was curious himself. "Find the nest and take it," was all Stoick said.

"Yeah, right!" Sizzle scoffed. "And what was the plan if we didn't _want_ him to find the nest and take it?"

Hookfang shifted his position. "Stoick never cared what anyone else wanted, did he? He was so set on this course of action, he'd thrown his own son aside to get there. Nothing was going to stop him - not dragons, not fog, not his own family, nothing!"

"Those stubbornness issues again?" Barf wondered.

"Stubbornness with a vengeance," the Nightmare nodded.

Suddenly, on the flat panel, Toothless' head, which had been bowed in despair, shot bolt-upright, ears erect. He sniffed, listened, and turned to the right. Stoick made his way aft, brusquely ordered the steersman to step aside, and leaned into the rudder, turning his ship to the right. After a few seconds, Toothless faced left; the Viking chief followed his movements, and all the other ships in the fleet followed them.

"Something about this doesn't make sense," Stormfly thought out loud. "Toothless, if you were homing in on the sounds of the dragons in the nest, then that sound wouldn't have shifted from side to side, would it? I mean, I lived in that nest for years before the Vikings captured me, and I don't remember the nest moving once in all that time. What were you tracking?"

"You're right, up to a point," Toothless nodded. "The sounds from the nest wouldn't move at all. But remember how sensitive my ears are? I wasn't tracking the sounds straight from the nest; I was tracking them as they were reflected off the rocks that we were sailing through. As we made our way through that maze of sea stacks, the reflections and the echoes did change their direction, depending on where we were."

"And you willingly led them through the maze, straight to our nest?" Belch demanded.

"I didn't know that's what I was doing," the black dragon answered him. "Stoick was behind me, and the wooden collar and the chains kept me from looking back. I had no idea that he was using me that way. I was just listening for familiar voices, and hoping that those ignorant Vikings wouldn't ram any sharp rocks and sink themselves, and me along with them."

Before anything else happened, the scene changed again. Hiccup was staring up at one of the dragon-cell doors in the training ring. He had just left that ring a few hours ago in disgrace. That time, the plan was for him to prove himself a true Viking. Now he made no pretense of being a Viking; he carried no weapon or shield, and he wore no helmet.

Suddenly, he heard an almost-threatening voice. "If you're planning on getting eaten, I'd definitely go with the Gronckle." It was Fishlegs, accompanied by the other teens, all looking tough and warlike.

"Fishlegs, where did you get that silly idea?" Meatlug asked his image on the screen. "I don't eat Vikings! Not even for snacks! I had the perfect chance to bite Hiccup's head off, the first time I met him, but I didn't even try."

"You tried to fireball him," Hookfang reminded her.

"Just because I tried to cook him doesn't mean I wanted to eat him," she shot back.

Hiccup gazed back at the other teens, suddenly less confident. What new torment were they planning at his expense? Then Tuffnut stepped forward, flexing his fingers. "You were wise to seek help from the world's most deadly weapon. It's me."

Snotlout pushed the thinner boy aside. "I love this plan!" he smiled.

Hiccup tried to remind him that he hadn't said anything about a plan yet, but now it was Ruffnut's turn. "You're crazy!" she burst out. Then she turned seductive. "I like that."

Astrid chose that moment to grab Ruff's helmet horn and pull her aside. "So? What _is_ the plan?"

"Why is Hiccup smiling all of a sudden?" Hookfang wondered.

"Maybe it's because he just realized that the other young humans aren't trying to abuse him," Stormfly reasoned. "Just for a change."

"No, that's only part of it," Meatlug corrected her. "I think the main reason he's smiling is because, for the first time _ever,_ they're all looking up to him as their leader. They want to follow _his_ plan. In their eyes, he's gone from zero to hero!"

"But he hasn't even told them what he's going to do!" Belch exclaimed. "Why are they following him when they don't know where he's going?"

Toothless answered that one. "He's the only one with any plan at all, even if he hasn't explained it yet. Astrid has confidence in him, and the others just want something cool and Viking-like to do. They all think they're dragon fighters, but they were left behind when the rest of the village sailed away to fight the dragons. Now Hiccup is going to find some kind of action with dragons involved, and they all want a piece of that action."

Hookfang was chuckling deeply, letting out little puffs of smoke through his nostrils. "What's so funny?" Sizzle demanded.

"I think I know what's about to happen," the much bigger dragon said. "My rider said he loved Hiccup's plan? He didn't love it so much when he saw what it meant, up close and personal!"

"So... what was the plan?" the Terror asked.

This time, it was Stormfly who said, "Watch and see."

The scene shifted back to the Viking fleet in the fog. They passed under the shattered remains of one of their ships from a previous raid, which was balanced on a rock. "How did that thing wind up there?" Meatlug asked. "Viking ships can't fly, even if they do have dragons for figureheads."

"I think that was my cousin Wavebatter's handiwork," Hookfang answered. "He always said he'd love to turn a Viking ship into an abstract sculpture if he ever got the chance."

"Would you have done that, if you had ever gotten the chance?" Stormfly asked him.

"No," the Nightmare said dismissively. "I never cared for that artsy stuff. Just watching the ships burn was fun enough for me. That, and watching the Vikings diving into the sea in all directions to get away from the flames."

"Did you enjoy knowing that some of them might have drowned?" Meatlug queried him.

"Actually, I never thought about that," Hookfang said. "When I was fighting against ships, then the ships were all that mattered. When I was up against individual Vikings on land, then I focused on the individuals. But I very much prefer to fight one enemy at a time. It keeps life simple."

The chittering and calling of the dragons was getting louder. Suddenly, land loomed up ahead; the ships grounded themselves and Stoick grinned, "We're here!"

"Is there a scary part coming?" Sizzle asked nervously.

"Not yet," Meatlug reassured him.

Back to the training ring. Sizzle relaxed. "Another scene change? This is getting distracting."

"I think you'll like this scene, though," Meatlug assured him, and Stormfly nodded. As the other teens looked on in amazement, Hiccup tried again to do what he'd started hours ago - he led Hookfang across the ring with one outstretched hand.

"Question," Stormfly said. "Why were you letting Hiccup do that when, the last time he did it, you thought it was a trick so they could kill you?"

"Paws. I had some time to think things over while I was in my cell again," Hookfang began. "I realized that the Vikings attacked Toothless the same way they once attacked me, and they jailed him the same way they jailed me. That meant that Toothless wasn't on their side. And if Toothless was protecting Hiccup, then that meant Hiccup wasn't on their side, either. Now that I understand his words when he said, 'I'm not one of them,' I know I was right. I played back the morning's events in my head, and I realized that Hiccup hadn't done anything threatening or harmful. He'd been totally peaceful and friendly; he showed me respect without trying to dominate me or beat me up. It was that noise from behind me that ruined everything, and Hiccup didn't make that noise. Maybe he really was different from all the other Vikings! When I heard his voice outside my cell and heard the doors start to open, I decided to give him another chance. It helped that I couldn't hear any other Vikings screaming for my head, just Hiccup's voice."

"That makes sense," Stormfly nodded.

"I thought of something else, too," the Nightmare went on. "When I attacked Hiccup, the other Vikings just watched. But when Toothless entered the ring, they swarmed him and beat him up. That told me that they cared more about killing a Night Fury than they did about saving Hiccup's life. Meatlug, you talked about him going from zero to hero in the teens' eyes? In the ring, when he'd started the day as their new champion, he went from hero to zero! And it was all because he was nice to me."

"So you decided to be nice to him in return?" Meatlug asked.

"I decided I'd give him a chance, and see what happened," Hookfang said. "I was not relaxed; my guard was up and I was ready for anything. I never took my eyes off him for a moment."

"That was fortunate," Stormfly said. "If you'd been looking around, you might have seen your rider get really nervous, pick up a broken spearhead, and prepare to use it like a knife. That might have ruined your peaceful little scene."

"He did that?" Hookfang was surprised. "You're right - I didn't see that, and it would have changed everything! Uhh, what changed my rider's mind?"

"Stormfly's rider did," Meatlug replied. "Watch and see. Play!" They watched as Astrid swatted Snotlout on the arm and said, "Uh-uh," and he dropped the spearhead. Meatlug went on, "Maybe she wasn't the dragon-killing heroine that she once wanted to be, but she still commanded a lot of respect among the other teens. They did what she told them to do."

"Why didn't Hiccup say something when Snotlout grabbed a weapon?" Toothless wondered.

"His back was to the other teens," Stormfly explained. "He was as focused on Hookfang as Hookfang was on Hiccup. He didn't see that little scene, either."

Hiccup backed up, with Hookfang moving with him, until he stood next to Snotlout. He took Snotlout's hand and moved it toward the dragon's nose. Snotlout looked fearful again. "Wh- what are you doing?"

"It's okay," Hiccup said soothingly. "It's okay."

 _"Ha-ha-hah!"_ Hookfang broke up laughing. "That's _exactly_ what he said to me in the ring the first time!" he snorted. "And he used the exact same tone of voice. He wasn't just training us dragons - he was training the humans, too!"

"That's my Hiccup," Toothless said approvingly.

Hiccup laid Snotlout's hand on Hookfang's nose and withdrew his own hand. Snotlout stared into the dragon's eyes in disbelief - the Monstrous Nightmare wasn't attacking him! After a moment, the dragon's growl dropped to a basso purr, and his eyes took on a kindly look. Snotlout laughed in nervous amazement.

"I guess that means you liked him?" Sizzle asked.

Meatlug also had a question. "Was it love at first sight, like with Toothless and Hiccup?"

"It wasn't love," Hookfang replied. " 'Respect' would be a better word. I could tell he was strong enough to be a threat, but he chose not to be threatening. I can work with someone like that. I was willing to give him a chance. I'd already declared peace with one human; why not try it with another one? I had no idea what it all meant, but at least it was less painful than fighting them and getting hit in the head all the time."

Then Hiccup stepped aside and found some rope in a box of weapons. "You're going to need something to help you hold on." Then they saw Meatlug, Stormfly, and Barf and Belch standing in a group nearby, closely watching the whole scene.

"How did you guys get loose?" Toothless asked them.

"Hiccup let us out, one at a time," Meatlug told him. "He let me out first. I can't ask him why. Maybe he thought I would be the least dangerous because there weren't any rocks in the ring, so I couldn't make fire."

"I can think of a better reason," Stormfly said. "He probably let you out first because his friend Fishlegs said you'd eat him, and he wanted to show everyone that Fishlegs' ideas about dragons were outdated now. He, Hiccup, had found a new way of relating to us that didn't involve teeth, claws, or sharp objects, and they all had to see that things had changed."

"That makes sense," Toothless nodded. "That's definitely something that Hiccup would do. So... what were you all thinking while you were waiting for the others to be released?"

Meatlug spoke first. "Paws. I was just glad to get out of that hole! Before he opened the door, I recognized his voice. He was the one who fought me with crazy grass and the D-spot rub instead of with axes and hammers. I assumed that he probably wouldn't hurt me. Then he opened the door, and he and his friends were just standing there! They made no hostile moves; they didn't seem to have any weapons or shields, even though they kept their helmets on. I had no idea what was going to happen. Then he backed off, so I went forward; I didn't get too close, but I wasn't keeping my distance, either. When he stopped, I stopped; then he made that 'it's okay' sound, so I went a little closer. He rubbed my nose horn, but didn't go for the 'D' spot. He seemed totally friendly! So I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I looked around for a way out, but the gates were still closed. Still, it was the first chance I'd had in I-don't-know-how-long to just stand there in the sun and breathe without fighting for my life. So I stood there and breathed. After a few seconds, he turned away from me and opened Stormfly's doors."

"That should have told you something right there," Toothless cut in. "If he was willing to turn his back on you, that shows that he trusted you."

"True," the Gronckle nodded. "I'm not sure what I did to deserve that kind of trust. All I ever did was try to kill him."

"He was brave enough to make the first move," Toothless noted. "You were sensible enough to follow his lead. Everything else followed after that."

"I was next," Stormfly took up the tale. "Like Meatlug said, I recognized his voice before he opened the doors, and I wasn't expecting spears and swords. Exactly what I _was_ expecting, I'm not sure, but I was so glad to get out of that cell, I didn't care. I admit, I threw those doors open so fast, I almost sent Hiccup flying. I don't think I missed him by much! And he just stood there with his hand outstretched, saying that 'It's okay' thing of his... and he didn't attack. The other humans didn't attack, either. What did it mean? Either it was an elaborate trick, or something had changed between us and the humans, and the Vikings never came up with elaborate tricks like that before. Not only that, but I saw Meatlug just standing there, enjoying a little freedom and not being attacked by anybody. I knew that she'd never willingly take part in any Viking trick, so that meant that there _was_ no trick. The Viking boy really meant to be peaceful. Or, at least, that was how things looked on the surface.

"Like Meatlug, I looked to see if the gates were open. But we weren't free to leave. I had no idea what was going on here! I figured that there's strength in numbers, so if it really was a trick, then I'd fight better with Meatlug beside me. So I walked over next to her, and the humans didn't stop me. It was the first time in years that I'd seen another dragon's face. We talked and tried to figure out what these Vikings were doing, and while we did that, Hiccup let the Zippleback out."

Belch began, "As soon as we -"

"No, let me tell it!" Barf interrupted. "The doors opened, but we didn't hear the voice of the one-armed, one-legged dragon-hating sadist, so we weren't expecting another mock-battle with young Vikings. Those young Vikings were there, but they had no weapons and they didn't attack us, so we -"

"I'll take it from here," Belch cut him off. "We got ready to blast them, until we saw Stormfly and Meatlug just standing there, talking, like it was no big deal for dragons to share a kill ring with Vikings who weren't trying to kill us. So I asked them, 'What's going on here?' They said, 'We have no idea, but it's better than the way things used to be, so we're not going to start any trouble.' So Barf held his gas and we just watched to see what would happen next. That's when Hiccup opened the doors and let Hookfang out."

"Hey!" Sizzle exclaimed. "How come he didn't let _me_ out?"

"I think I know, little fellow," Toothless said. "His plan was for him and all his friends to ride dragons and try to save his tribe, and you're too small to ride."

The Terror was not mollified. "It still would have been nice if he'd let me out. I hated being in prison as much as the bigger dragons did!"

"Maybe he just didn't have time to let you out," Stormfly suggested. "After all, he was trying to save his people from the Queen, and he knew he had to hurry before the Vikings and the Queen started mixing it up. He had to teach his friends how to ride dragons when they'd never done it before, and he had to get the idea across to us that the humans were going to ride us. That was some trick in itself, seeing how we didn't speak the same language! He used some hand gestures and he was very patient with us."

"I think Stormfly got the idea first," Meatlug added. "She bent down, Hiccup climbed up onto her neck, and she didn't buck him off. She looked back at him for a second, and then she said, 'I think he wants his friends to ride you guys, too.' They sorted themselves out pretty quickly. The skinny ones who do everything together teamed up on Barf and Belch, the muscular one was already drawn to Hookfang, Fishlegs and I came to an understanding pretty quickly, and the other girl got onto Stormfly, right behind Hiccup. Then Hiccup got down, opened the gates, and got back on Stormfly just before she ran for freedom and spread her wings.

"We were free! Hiccup had set us free, with no conditions except that he and his friends went with us. Just the feeling of spreading our wings and flying, without a wall in front of our faces and bars over our heads, was amazing! The weight of the Vikings on our backs wasn't much, and we got used to it pretty quickly."

"Before the Vikings caught us," Barf added, "we took flying for granted. It was how we got from place to place; it didn't mean anything. Once they caught us and imprisoned us, we couldn't fly at all anymore; we were too big to get off the ground in that little training ring. I remember Belch saying to me once, 'If we ever get out of here, I will never take flying for granted again.' 'Me, neither,' I said, and we both meant it. Those first few seconds of freedom in the air... they were amazing! And the feeling didn't wear off as we flew."

Belch nodded. "Toothless, I think we understand how it felt for you to fly with Hiccup after he fixed your tail. Maybe our riders aren't as selfless as yours, but they gave us our freedom, and we'll never forget that. Just to feel the wind in your faces, and see the ocean far below you and the clouds just above you... those are simple pleasures, but they make life worth living."

"I'll agree with them," Hookfang nodded. "I couldn't fly in that ring, either. When Hiccup opened the gates and let us free, that was their last chance to play a trick on us, and they didn't do it. I never knew that freedom could feel so good. I made such crazy maneuvers in the sky, I almost lost my rider twice! I wasn't trying to lose him, of course. He was my ticket to freedom; if I threw him off, I figured the other Vikings wouldn't be so kind to me after that. After a while, he got a death-grip on my horns. I knew it was so he wouldn't feel like he was going to fall off again, but it was uncomfortable when he yanked on them to change my direction. It took me a few minutes to communicate to him that he could hold on without wrestling my head every time he wanted a right turn. We flew together pretty well after that."

"Fishlegs and I had no problems like that," Meatlug said. "He held onto my ears, but he could tell that he shouldn't hold on too tightly. I think it was more for reassurance and balance than for any actual safety I gave him. I didn't fly crazy like the rest of you did; I can't, of course. We Gronckles don't fly that way. As it was, I had to go full speed ahead just to keep up with you. But it felt so _good_ not to be confined anymore! I didn't fall asleep once on the flight back to the nest. I didn't even feel sleepy, and for a Gronckle like me, that's unusual.

"We all flew home, of course. We had all been held captive for ages; we didn't know what kind of welcome we'd get when we got home. We definitely did _not_ expect to find the Queen chomping on longships and chasing a horde of Vikings all over the landscape. Play!"


	12. Chapter 12

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 12

The scenes that the dragons were watching changed again. Vikings were sharpening wooden stakes and planting them in rows in the rocky beach that surrounded the dragons' nest.

"Oh, brilliant!" Hookfang smirked. "Those will be really useful against us! Did somebody forget that dragons can fly right over those obstacles?"

A row of huge catapults loomed up in the background. They saw a battle plan drawn in the ashy sand. Stoick pointed at it with a sword. "When we crack this mountain open, all Hel is going to break loose!"

"And my undies," Gobber added helpfully. "Good thing I brought extras."

"What are these 'undies' that Gobber keeps mentioning?" Sizzle asked.

Barf and Belch started to tell him, but Toothless motioned for them to be silent. "Sizzle," he said kindly, "there are some things that dragons were never meant to know. Can you ask us something else?"

"Sure, I guess, when I think of something," the little dragon sulked.

"No matter how this ends, it ends today!" the Viking chief announced, and made a hand signal. One after the other, the catapults lobbed their stones at one particular spot on the wall of the mountain.

"What if that spot turned out to be solid rock a hundred feet thick?" Stormfly wondered. "How did they know where to shoot their rocks?"

"Maybe someone put his ear to the rock wall and listened for dragons," Meatlug suggested.

Rock after rock slammed into the wall, chipping away at its surface. Cracks appeared, and then the whole wall collapsed, revealing empty space inside. Stoick stepped up to the hole his people had just made.

"I thought of a question!" Sizzle burst out. "In all the scenes we've seen so far, Stoick carried a hammer. In that scene with the battle map, he had a sword. Now he's got a hammer again. Where did the sword come from, and where did it go?"

No one had a answer. Finally, Toothless suggested, "Darned if I know. Maybe it went into the scabbard that Prince Hans didn't have, but drew his own sword from, in the climactic scene of 'Frozen.' Let's see what happens next."

They saw Stoick try to look into the darkened space inside the mountain. He made one more signal with his hammer, and a catapult lobbed a flaming fireball into the hole so he could see for a moment.

"Boy, it's a good thing that fireball didn't fly a few feet lower," Stormfly commented. "The Vikings would have needed a new chief."

Meatlug shook her big head. "Given that Stoick was such a heartless jerk, maybe that would have been better."

"No," Toothless said flatly, "If that had happened, then I would have drowned, so would Hiccup, and the war would still be going."

"Are you saying that our world _needed_ a heartless jerk?" the Gronckle wondered.

"I'm saying," Toothless corrected her, "that our world needed things to work out just the way they did. Even the unpleasant parts."

The light from the flaming fireball showed that the walls, floor, and ceiling of the cave were covered with dragons of all kinds. The moment Stoick charged at them with a yell, they all fled - some out the newly-opened hole in the wall, some out of another hole higher up on the mountain, and some out the crater at the top. None of them even tried to fight the humans who stabbed and swung at them with their weapons. Toothless watched them go from his place on the longship; he cringed, folded down his ears, and whimpered, "This is not going to end well."

"Is that it?" Gobber shrugged as he watched the last of their enemies flee.

"Oh, he thought the dragons would never come back to their home?" Belch scoffed. "Where did he get his tactics?"

"Brilliant thinking, Napoleon!" Barf added.

"Who's Napoleon?" Sizzle wanted to know.

"Don't ask," Stormfly advised him.

"It's a fair question," Toothless cut in. "Napoleon is a human who hasn't been born yet, but when he is, he'll probably be famous for coming up with clever strategies."

"How could you possibly know stuff that hasn't happened yet?" the Terror demanded.

"Umm..." Toothless stammered. "Never mind that; I think something important is about to happen."

"We've done it!" Spitelout shouted, and the Vikings all cheered lustily. All except Stoick, who heard another roar from within the mountain. Toothless heard it, too, and redoubled his efforts to break free from his collar and chains.

"This isn't over!" the chief shouted. "Form your ranks! Hold together!"

"Did that do any good?" Sizzle asked.

"I can actually answer that one," Toothless replied. "No, it did no good at all. They would have been better off running for their lives, right then and there."

"Why didn't they?" the little dragon wanted to know.

"Because they had never seen the Queen before," the Night Fury said, "and they had no idea who they were up against, or what she could do."

"Hiccup warned him," Stormfly reminded him. "What was it that Hiccup said in their big hall? 'You don't know what you're up against! It's like nothing you've ever seen! Dad, please! I promise you that you can't win this one!' Maybe Stoick was remembering that, and maybe wondering if he'd gotten in over his head this time."

He quickly found out. A huge crack split the rock floor of the newly-opened cave, and a deafening bellow blew back the hair of the Vikings a hundred feet away. Even Gobber actually lost his imperturbable exterior and looked nervous. Then Stoick leaped back to ground level and shouted, "Get clear!" Whatever was coming, it was like nothing they had ever seen or heard before.

"Those mighty dragon-slayers look mighty scared now," Barf grinned. The would-be dragon conquerors scattered in panic as the Queen stuck her head out the hole, flexed her shoulders, and shattered enough solid rock to let the rest of her through.

 _"That's_ the Queen?" Sizzle quavered, and hid his head under his wings. "I'm all out of questions!"

Stoick stared at what he had helped to unleash. "Odin help us!"

"I'll ask the question that Sizzle would ask if he was watching this," Barf said. "Who's Odin?"

"I think he's one of the invisible, powerful beings that the Vikings believe in," Toothless said hesitantly.

"If he's invisible," Belch asked, "then how do they know he's powerful?"

"Humans are strange like that," the Night Fury replied. "They claim to put their faith in some kind of all-powerful invisible deity, but 99% of the time, they just do what they please, instead of doing what their deity told them to do. Then, the moment they get in trouble, they expect their deity to alter reality and rescue them. And as soon as they get out of trouble, they revert to their old ways of doing things. Most of them don't really believe in the deity they call on when things get rough; it's just a habit, something they do to make themselves feel better. They're as likely to use their god's name as a curse word as to call on him in prayer."

Barf and Belch shook their heads in unison. "That doesn't make any sense," Barf decided.

Toothless shook his own head. "If you're looking for humans to make sense, then you're looking in the wrong place. Even Hiccup can be totally illogical at times."

The Queen roared, "Who has damaged my nest? Who has released my dragons? You have made me very angry, very angry indeed!" The Vikings answered with catapults; their stones were like pebbles compared to the huge dragon that bit one of those catapults into matchwood. When some of the humans ran for their ships, the great dragon inhaled and shot out a flaming hurricane that ignited every ship in the Viking fleet. Men screamed and jumped overboard to put out their burning clothing. Toothless realized that his time was running out, even if the humans didn't kill him.

"Smart, that one," Gobber commented.

"We're all a lot smarter than you... think we are!" Belch called at him.

"I was a fool," Stoick grunted.

All the dragons chorused, "Thank you, Captain Obvious!"

The chief ordered all his people to the far side of the island, as if that might keep them safe from a dragon that could fly. Gobber refused to go with them. "I think I'll stay, just in case you're thinking of doing something crazy."

"Something crazy?" Meatlug asked. "Like father, like son?"

"If that's true," Stormfly answered, "then it's the first thing they've had in common since these moving pictures started."

"I can buy them a few minutes if I give that thing something to hunt!" Stoick growled.

"He was going to sacrifice himself for the others?" Barf asked. "Is that normal for humans?"

"It's normal for true leaders," Toothless answered. "I can't fault the man's courage."

"Then I can double that time," Gobber grinned, and the two old warriors clasped hands for what they assumed would be the last time. They ran at the Queen, shouting and waving their weapons to get her attention. Stoick succeeded when he threw a sharpened stake like a spear at her face, and nearly hit her in the eye. She lowered her head to stare in disbelief at these tiny creatures who were challenging her. Then she raised her head, roared at them, and...

...and the Queen bellowed in pain as her head was suddenly crowned with flame.

"What just happened?" asked Sizzle, who was watching through a narrow crack between his wings.

"That was my handiwork," Meatlug answered. "Fishlegs did some hand signals to show me what he wanted me to do, and I had no great love for the Queen anyway. I knew I couldn't do her any real harm, but just shooting her made me feel good. I found out afterwards that my timing was perfect; I saved Stoick's and Gobber's lives by distracting her with that shot."

"Were they thankful?" Hookfang asked.

"At the time? Probably not," the Gronckle said.

Stoick stared upward, wondering what had just happened to distract the Queen from eating him alive. From behind her head came four more dragons...

...with human riders! The background music burst into a triumphant fanfare.

"Here we come, to save the day!" Hookfang sang.

"What the..." Stoick mouthed. His son was riding the Deadly Nadder, and he was the one giving the orders to the others!

"I bet you never thought you'd see _that_ day, did you, Mister Hiccup-Hater!?" Hookfang snarled. The four-dragon formation gracefully overflew the battlefield, then turned back as Hiccup snapped out commands to keep his group together.

"Every bit the boar-headed, stubborn Viking you ever were!" Gobber complained, and Stoick could only nod.

Barf said, "He's probably wondering what new disaster his son was about to unleash."

Belch shook his head. "Whatever it was, it could hardly be worse than the disaster that the father had unleashed a minute ago."

Hiccup got his dragons into a tight circle and held a quick council of war. He gave each of the other riders their orders, and no one questioned him.

"Getting four different kinds of dragons into a tight circle like that is no easy feat," Meatlug observed.

"Getting five humans to take orders in the middle of a suicidal battle isn't so easy, either," Stormfly said. "Toothless, you called Stoick a true leader? I'd have to say that Hiccup was every bit the true leader his father ever was!"

"No argument," Toothless said quietly.

"Hey, wait a second!" Sizzle exclaimed. He had timidly stuck his head out from beneath his wings to see what was going on. "While all those other brave dragons were taking on the Queen, how come Stormfly was running away?"

"I was _not_ running away!" the Nadder retorted angrily. "I was following my riders' guidance. After a few seconds, I realized that they were looking for Toothless."

"What difference would that make against the Queen?" the Terror said. "I mean, it's hopeless with four dragons; isn't it just as hopeless with one more?"

"When the 'one more' is a Night Fury, that makes all the difference in the world," Toothless said archly.

The Zippleback was the first to get into position. His riders shouted some human insults that would mean nothing to a dragon, but the Queen replied as though she understood them, with a blast of flame that Barf and Belch barely avoided.

"Nice dodge," Toothless said to them.

"We were motivated," Barf answered.

Now Meatlug and Hookfang got into position on either side of the Queen's head. To see them clearly, the huge dragon opened her other four eyes, prompting Fishlegs to shout, "Umm, this thing doesn't have a blind spot!"

"Of course she did!" Stormfly burst out. "Those other eyes didn't help her see under her own chin, any more than the first pair did!"

"Stormfly, did you ever wish you had two extra sets of eyes, so you wouldn't have a blind spot?" Hookfang wondered.

"What would I do with extra eyes?" she asked. "I can see just fine with the ones I've got, except for things that are right in front of me. And if I had eyes that would help me see what's right in front of me, those eyes would have to go where my nose is, and then how would I smell?"

Belch called, "You'd smell terrible, the same as always!" Barf laughed so hard, green gas came out of his nose.

Stormfly rolled her eyes. "Oh, ho ho and ha ha. Your riders' sense of 'humor' is rubbing off on you." She used her wingtips to make air-quotes around "humor."

"Hey, watch it!" Belch threatened her. "Those are fighting words!"

"There!" Hiccup shouted on the screen. Stormfly turned gracefully and overflew the ship where Toothless was desperately struggling against his restraints. Hiccup left Astrid in control of the Nadder as he prepared to jump.

"She looks kind of nervous," Meatlug noticed.

"I guess I'd be nervous, too, if I was suddenly in control of my former arch-enemy in the middle of a hopeless battle," Stormfly replied. "She adjusted pretty quickly, though."

The instant Hiccup landed, Toothless' facial expression changed. Gone was his terror; now he looked hopeful, even happy. Hiccup yanked off the leather strap that held the Night Fury's mouth shut, then began trying to pry loose the ring bolts that held Toothless' chains.

"Question," Stormfly said. "Toothless, once your mouth was free, why didn't you use your fire to blow those chains away?"

"Because, at that range, I would have blown Hiccup away, too," the Night Fury answered.

"Then why didn't you ask him to back off?" Hookfang queried him.

"For one thing, I didn't speak his language," Toothless said, "and for another, our ship was on fire at both ends. The only safe place was right in the middle, where we were. Hiccup couldn't back off; he had no place else to go."

"So, if he didn't get you free, you'd both burn or drown?" Meatlug concluded.

"Exactly," the black dragon replied. "It was all or nothing for both of us."

The scene jumped back to the Queen, where Snotlout and Fishlegs were banging on their shields with an enthusiasm they'd never found in the ring. "It's working!" they shouted to each other.

"Oh, yeah, it was working," Hookfang grimaced. Just the sound of the shield-banging from the flat panel was irritating enough. The actual banging had shattered their equilibrium; the dragons were unable to focus on anything, even on holding their position. Hookfang swerved and collided with the Queen's head, sending Snotlout flying. He slid across her scaly head, dropped his weapons, and nearly fell off the other side.

"So that's how he wound up on her head!" Stormfly remarked. "I always wondered about that."

"Did you think he jumped there on purpose?" Hookfang asked.

"That's the kind of thing Snotlout would do, isn't it?" the Nadder came back.

"Now that you mention it, yes, it is," the Nightmare nodded. "But not that time."

Now Meatlug went into a spin. Fishlegs made a good throw of his hammer to Snotlout as he rode her down. She skidded through the black gravel; Fishlegs raised his hands in triumph. "I'm okay!" Then her momentum rocked her forward until she rolled on top of him. "Less okay."

Toothless mock-scolded Meatlug, "You Gronckles will take any excuse to lie down and rest!"

"I still feel bad about that part," Meatlug said, "but, considering how little control I had, I think I did well just to land right-side-up." Then she gasped as the Queen took a step toward them.

"Was she trying to step on you on purpose?" Sizzle asked her.

"I don't know," the Gronckle said, "but if she did step on us, it wouldn't matter if it was deliberate or not." The Queen quickly became distracted as Snotlout found his courage and began hammering on her eyeballs, each of which was bigger than he was. Her footstep barely missed Fishlegs and Meatlug. She angrily shook her head, which sent Snotlout flying again; her tail wrecked the ship Hiccup and Toothless were riding, and then her hindfoot smashed the ship, sending Toothless to the bottom. Hiccup swam down and desperately pulled at the chain one last time, then began to drown...

...until something pulled him up to the surface. "Hey! Don't leave me!" Toothless shouted, but he was powerless to intervene.

"What happened to Hiccup?" Barf asked.

"Remember when I said there were things about Stoick that you didn't know yet?" Toothless explained. "You're about to learn a few of those things. This is why I can't completely hate the man." They saw that it was Stoick who had rescued Hiccup. Then the big man dove in again.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Meatlug burst out. "Are you telling me that _Stoick the Vast_ went back in the water to save _you,_ Toothless?"

"That's exactly what he did," Toothless said.

"Why in Tannin's name did he do that?" Belch exclaimed. "I thought he hated you with a passion! I thought he wanted you dead!"

"I don't know for sure," the Night Fury said, "but my best guess is that he wanted the Queen dead even more. He knew that he and his Vikings couldn't do the job, and he could see that the four dragons from his training ring couldn't do it, either. He also knew that the Night Fury is the most powerful of all dragons, he knew from my flying harness that his son could ride me, and he must have decided that Hiccup and me were the only hope for him and his entire tribe."

"Now _that's_ a change from his usual Viking attitude!" Stormfly grinned. "A few hours ago, he disowned his son and cast him out of the tribe; now he's ready to put all his hope in Hiccup the Useless?"

"Desperation can change the way someone thinks," was all Toothless could say. They saw him on the screen, resigned to dying on the bottom of the sea. His eyes shot open when Stoick approached; what did the Viking chief plan? After a moment's hesitation, Stoick wrenched the wooden collar open, and Toothless was free. With an angry snarl of, "We're even; I owe you nothing," he grabbed Stoick and hauled him out of the water.

"He saved you, so you saved him?" Meatlug asked.

"Fair is fair," Toothless replied.

"So what's with the teeth and the snarl?" she pressed him.

"I still resented him for what he'd done to Hiccup," the black dragon answered. "You may notice that I didn't put him down very gently. Now it was about me and Hiccup. And the Queen."

He landed, shook himself dry, gestured with his head toward the queen, and roared, "Let's take her down!"

"You've got it, bud," Hiccup said eagerly.

"Did he actually understand you?" Belch exclaimed.

"I thought he couldn't do that," Barf added.

"He understood my gesture," Toothless told them. "Besides, you've probably noticed that we think alike many times. That was one of them."

"But why was he so eager to fight the Queen?" Hookfang asked. "He could have gotten on your back and flown away to safety. His tribe still thought he was useless, and his father hadn't told him about any changes of heart yet."

"Good point," Meatlug nodded. "The two of you could have gone on a little vacation, forever, like he planned to do earlier, and no one could have stopped him. I might have done that if I was in his shoes."

"But that's not how Hiccup thinks!" Toothless burst out. "Even though they all rejected him, he still felt like he should protect them and fight for them. He's totally unselfish. That's another of his traits that gets him in trouble sometimes... but I wouldn't change him for all the fish in the sea."

They watched Hiccup spring into the saddle and set his feet into the stirrups as the Queen bellowed again.


	13. Chapter 13

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 13

On the flat panel, Hiccup had just jumped into Toothless' saddle and was hooking up for flight. His intention: to fight the largest dragon any of them had ever seen. His plan: unknown.

"Did he really think the two of you could take out the Queen?" Meatlug asked Toothless.

"The two of us had already done the impossible, several times over," he answered without taking his eyes off the screen. "I'd never tried fighting her, of course. But I definitely wanted to take her down, he seemed as confident as always, and I figured that, between the two of us, maybe we could do the impossible one more time."

Suddenly, Stoick stepped up and grabbed Hiccup's arm. "Hiccup! I'm sorry. For... for everything."

"For _everything?"_ Stormfly exclaimed. "That's quite a lot!"

Toothless nodded. "For a proud man like that, if he said it, then he must have really meant it."

"I'll admit, that's not what I expected when he grabbed Hiccup's arm," Hookfang said. "I figured he'd pull Hiccup off of Toothless' back and scold him for being such a terrible Viking."

"There's one thing you need to know about humans," Toothless explained. "Most of the time, they do whatever works. Stoick had seen how all his old dragon-fighting skills didn't work against the Queen, and only the other dragons were making any difference at all. He must have figured that only a powerful dragon could take out another powerful dragon. And there I was, ready to fly and fight!"

"But what about the stubbornness issues?" Sizzle asked. "Wouldn't he keep trying to do the same things that always worked in the past, just because that's all he knew?"

"I guess, when a man gets desperate, he'll try anything," Stormfly suggested. "He was definitely a desperate man, if he was willing to throw his own life away just to gain a few minutes' time for the rest of his people to escape!"

They watched Hiccup for his reaction. "Yeah, me too."

"What was _he_ apologizing for?" Meatlug demanded. "He didn't do anything wrong!"

"I think his conscience was bothering him a little because he didn't tell the other Vikings the truth about me," Toothless said.

"But they would have killed you!" Stormfly objected.

"Still, he's an honest human, and deceiving people didn't sit well with him," the Night Fury countered. "Even if he didn't really do anything wrong, saying he was sorry was a good way to make things a little better with his father."

But Stoick's next words stunned them all. "You don't have to go up there."

 _" **What?!** "_ Toothless exclaimed.

"Paws!" Meatlug shouted. _"What_ is he _thinking?"_

 _"Is_ he thinking?" Barf added.

"Wasn't that the whole point of him rescuing you, Toothless?" Hookfang nearly shouted. "Why did he risk his life to save you if he didn't want you to fight for him?"

Stormfly nodded. "And since when was it optional for a Viking to fight to save his tribe?"

Barf agreed. "Since when was it optional for a Viking to fight at all? That's what they do!"

"At this point, I'm just guessing," Toothless said thoughtfully, "but I think Stoick is having yet another change of heart. He's seen Hiccup riding a Nadder and giving orders to the other teens. Maybe he's wondering if his son is really as useless as he thought before."

"Or maybe," Meatlug added, "he was thinking about how he might have felt if he hadn't rescued Hiccup from the water in time. Maybe he's realizing that he can't just throw his son aside as easily as that. Maybe... maybe he's starting to think of Hiccup as a son, and not as an embarrassment."

Barf and Belch chorused, "Nope."

"That'll never happen," Hookfang nodded firmly.

"People are resistant to change," Toothless told them, "but they _can_ change. Stoick has seen his son change from an accident-prone kid into a dragon-riding warrior. Maybe the father can change, too. Keep watching. Play!"

They weren't expecting Hiccup's answer. "We're Vikings. It's an occupational hazard."

"Whoa! Paws again!" Meatlug exclaimed. "Isn't that the same line Stoick used when he was talking about killing all of us?"

"And didn't his father just finish telling him he _isn't_ a Viking?" Barf objected

"And how can he be smiling when he knows he might _die_ fighting the Queen?" Belch added.

Toothless smiled. "My answer to all three of those questions is, 'That's Hiccup for you!' Yes, that's his father's line. It must be something that Stoick said a lot, because Hiccup wasn't at that meeting in their Mead Hall when Stoick said it, but he still knew what his father said. Yes, Stoick took his Vikingness away, but Hiccup was kind of throwing that right back in his father's face, as a reminder that maybe he wasn't the best at swinging a hammer, but he _was_ the best at riding a dragon. As for smiling... he knew he was up against a nearly unstoppable foe, but he was doing it with a Night Fury! Losing the battle was probably something he wasn't really thinking about. Frankly, I don't think he was thinking about winning, either. He just wanted to show what he and I could do."

"Are you guessing?" Meatlug asked him.

"Yes, but I think it's a good guess," the Night Fury answered. "After all, I know Hiccup pretty well. Play!"

Stoick clasped Hiccup's hand with both of his huge hands. "I'm proud to call you my son." He released his grip.

"Whoa again!" Stormfly exclaimed. "I didn't see _that_ coming!"

"I did," Meatlug explained. "They've made their peace with each other. They both know there's a good chance that Hiccup will never come back alive. So the father is saying the words that Hiccup has always dreamed of hearing, so the son can fight his ultimate battle with nothing negative hanging over his head. It's almost a final blessing. And, if Hiccup doesn't come back, Stoick won't be haunted by the words he could have said, but didn't."

Toothless blinked hard. "Meatlug, that totally makes sense. I think Hiccup almost cried when he heard that." His voice dropped to a whisper. "The same goes for me."

Hiccup finally managed to say, "Thanks, Dad." Then he and his dragon braced themselves and sprang straight up into the air. Stoick watched them go.

"I'll bet he's thinking, 'I never saw a Viking fight on a Night Fury before,' " Hookfang commented.

"Considering that, before today, he never even saw a Night Fury before, that's not saying much," Stormfly countered.

"And now his son is riding his tribe's traditional worst enemy, to save them from his tribe's newer, even worse enemy," Meatlug nodded. "I can understand it if the man is a little bit confused."

As Toothless' wings propelled him skyward, Astrid saw and shouted, "He's up!"

"I guess that's what she was waiting for," Meatlug commented.

"Why?" Hookfang asked. "Didn't she think the rest of us could do the job?"

"It wasn't looking good for us," Stormfly admitted. "Meatlug, you were down. Hookfang, you'd lost your rider. Barf, Belch, and I were circling, staying out of the Queen's fire arc and trying to find something useful we could do. All her hopes must have been set on Hiccup and Toothless."

"Did Hiccup realize that he was on a kamikaze mission?" Meatlug asked.

Toothless shook his head. "I'm pretty sure that Camicazi was the last person on his mind at that point."

Meatlug looked irritated. "No, that's not what I... oh, forget it."

"Get Snotlout out of there!" Astrid shouted at the twins.

"Why did she wait so long before she tried to rescue my rider?" Hookfang wanted to know. "Did she want him to die?"

"No," Toothless answered. "She didn't save him before this because she probably hoped he could do the Queen some more harm while he was on her head. Now, she figured I was about to clobber the Queen, and they had to rescue Snotlout before he became a victim of friendly fire."

"What's friendly fire?" Sizzle asked.

"It means the fire-shots that were meant for the Queen could have hurt him, too," Stormfly explained.

"Oh," the Terror nodded slowly. "Why do they call it that? That kind of fire doesn't sound very friendly."

"Any fire is unfriendly if you're on the receiving end," Toothless commented.

After some squabbling, Ruff and Tuff got the Zippleback pointed toward the Queen's head. Snotlout saw them coming, timed his leap perfectly, and landed on Barf and Belch's body. They swooped away, with Stormfly just behind them... and that was her mistake.

"What were you doing back there?" Meatlug asked her.

"I think Astrid wanted to cover the twins' retreat," Stormfly said, keeping her eyes off the unfolding scene on the flat panel. "I don't know what good she thought we could do. But she cut it too close, and that was almost the end of me." As she spoke, the Queen began inhaling, and the blue dragon was inexorably pulled toward that enormous maw. They heard Stormfly scream in terror. Then they all heard that rising whistle.

"Toothless, your timing was perfect," Stormfly said. "I don't remember if I ever thanked you for saving my life that day, but if I didn't, then thank you."

"I don't remember, either," the Night Fury admitted. "But you're welcome. You can thank me with a fish, the next time you catch a good one." The Vikings were all screaming, "Night Fury! Get down!" But they weren't his target today. Just as the Queen began to close her jaws on Stormfly, Toothless dove and fired a shot straight into the gigantic mouth. That stopped the inhaling instantly. But, between the sudden end to the suction, the force of Stormfly's desperate flapping, and the shock wave from the Night Fury firebolt, the Nadder was flung violently forward, and she and her rider parted company.

"Oh, no! I can't look!" Sizzle whimpered.

"Again?" Hookfang complained. "You're missing half the show!"

Astrid screamed as she tumbled. Toothless pulled out of his dive, did a quick roll, and dived again to save her.

"Hey!" Stormfly burst out. "What was the roll for? Why didn't you just turn and dive to catch my rider? Why were you showing off when she was plunging to her death?"

"I guess I could have done things the direct way," Toothless said, keeping a totally straight face, "but that would have had no style. Besides, I had enough time; I caught her, didn't I?"

"That's not very reassuring," the Nadder said sourly.

"Actually, that roll served a good purpose," the black dragon reassured her. "I was in the middle of a zoom climb; I had to slow down in a hurry if I was going to reverse my course and catch your rider before she pancaked. The roll killed some of my forward momentum so I could do a flip-turn, then a quick plunge for a rescue."

"There were a lot of long words in there, Toothless," Sizzle protested. "I'm naught but a humble Terror."

"It means I knew what I was doing," the Night Fury replied archly.

On the screen, Hiccup anxiously asked, "Did you get her?" Toothless looked beneath himself. In spite of her brush with death, Astrid couldn't help smiling at him. He grinned and hooted back at her, flipped her right-side-up, and half-dropped her on land before gaining height again.

"It's a good thing her foot didn't come out of her boot!" Barf observed.

"And it's a good thing he slowed down before he dropped her," Belch added, "or she would have landed flat on her Astrid!" Barf snorked.

She looked up at Toothless and Hiccup in very much the same way Stoick had done. "Go!" she urged them.

"And now it was Hiccup and me against the Queen," Toothless said. "Everyone else was running away or trying not to draw the Queen's attention. Hiccup wanted to show everyone what we could do; now watch what we did!"

Hiccup looked down and said, "That thing has wings!"

"Gee, do ya think?" Sizzle smirked.

"Why do you say that?" Stormfly asked, puzzled.

"Doesn't he know that all dragons have wings?" the little dragon said.

"That's not true," the Nadder shot back. "There's the Speed Stinger, there's the Bewilderbeast, there's the Cavern Crasher, there's -"

"Okay, okay!" Sizzle burst out. "Thank you, Fishlegs!"

"There's no need to get snippy, little dragon," Stormfly said haughtily, glaring down at him from her full height.

"In any event," Meatlug quickly added, "Hiccup probably didn't know about all those wingless dragons yet. To him, being a dragon meant having wings, so he expected the Queen to have them, too. He may have been puzzled because she had stayed on the ground and hadn't tried to fly yet."

Hiccup and Toothless climbed, then flipped over into a power dive.

"Was the high-altitude stuff really necessary?" Meatlug asked him. "I'm starting to wonder if you really _were_ showing off."

"No, there's a good reason for that," Toothless answered. "The longer and faster I dive, the more power it gives to my firebolts. It has something to do with fanning the flames in my throat. I wanted a really powerful shot this time. Watch!" They watched. Toothless' dive was so fast, he was nearly out of control. Near the end, he flattened his dive, lined up on the Queen, and fired a shot that made her roar with pain as it knocked her over. The Vikings could feel the shock of her hitting the ground.

"Ouch!" Stormfly grunted. "I'm glad that shot wasn't aimed at me!"

"I _never_ saw the Queen take a fall like that," Meatlug nodded.

Hookfang also nodded. "Pretty good, for a small dragon."

Belch added, "It's a good thing she didn't land on all the Vikings when she fell over, or the whole battle might have ended right there." The Night Fury zoomed away as the Queen ponderously flapped upwards to chase them.

"Toothless, what were you thinking about at that point?" Stormfly asked him.

"Well," he began, "I was kind of caught up in the action, so I wasn't thinking any profound thoughts. Mostly, I was thinking, 'I've shot her twice and hit her twice, and it hasn't even slowed her down. Now it's us that she's mad at; she's forgotten everyone else. For the Vikings, that's good. For us... not so much.' "

"Were you afraid?" Meatlug asked him.

"Me? A Night Fury? Afraid?" Toothless asked levelly. "I was too angry to be afraid at that point. For the first time ever, we'd gotten the Queen out of her nest where we could take some good, clean shots at her. I wanted to take some more of those shots! That's what Night Furies do - we blast things. I was thinking about all the dragons who had died to appease that monster's gluttonous appetite. I was thinking about the time yesterday when she tried to eat me, for the crime of being in the nest. I just wanted to take her down once and for all. How that was going to work, I didn't know; I was trusting Hiccup for that part. But I definitely was not afraid."

"Well, he can fly!" Hiccup exclaimed. Toothless nodded and grimaced as he accelerated to full speed... and just in time. The Queen's jaws slammed shut on where they had been a second ago. They led her through a stone arch; she shattered it on impact and kept chasing them. They shot past the Vikings, who stared in amazement as they passed. Many cheered.

"Why were they so amazed?" Hookfang asked.

"They never saw a Night Fury before," Meatlug explained.

"They never saw Hiccup doing stuff right, either," Stormfly added.

"And they never saw either of us fighting to save their lives," Toothless finished.

The cheers stopped as the great bulk of the Queen shot past them and they realized how heavily the odds were stacked against Toothless and Hiccup. Again, they led her through an arch of stone, hoping that she would get stuck, or at least slowed down. She smashed that arch as well, and kept coming.

"I think it was about that time that Hiccup realized we needed a Plan B," Toothless commented. "Whatever made him look up, I'm glad for it." Hiccup adjusted the Night Fury's tail and they clawed straight up, with the Queen still in hot pursuit. They both heard the hissing from behind them; Hiccup shouted, "Here it comes!" just before they dodged the fiery blast.

"He didn't have to warn me," Toothless commented. "I've been around Terrible Terrors enough; I know what that hissing noise means, even if it was a lot louder from the Queen's throat than from yours, Sizzle." The fire shot would have incinerated them like a fly in Hiccup's forge. They swerved some more and plunged into the heavy clouds.

 _"Now_ were you afraid?" Meatlug asked again.

"Hardly!" Toothless answered. "We were hitting our stride now. Hiccup had a plan, and I had everything he needed to make it happen. I was focused on keeping track of where the Queen was, and on using my fires efficiently. I wasn't afraid at all."

The Queen bit down once more. "Missed!" she roared. "Come out and fight, you insignificant son of a sand lizard! You can't hide in there forever!" She hovered, listening and smelling for clues to the whereabouts of her quarry. Then she got a big fat clue when her quarry dove and shot a burning hole in her right wing. Toothless whipped past her far too fast for her to respond, gained height, and dove and fired again. And again, and again. From below, all the Vikings could see and hear were his shots, and glimpses of the Queen's silhouette.

"Paws!" Stormfly called.

"Right now? Right when it's getting interesting?" Sizzle said with displeasure.

"That's an awful lot of shots you're firing, Toothless," the Nadder said. "What happened to your six-shot limit?"

"Six shots? That's a crock of fish guts!" Toothless snorted. "Whoever came up with that number obviously never saw these moving pictures. I shot the Queen twice before we headed for the clouds. I shot her once on the way back down. And in between, I fired ten shots, five into each wing. That's thirteen, and I could have fired more if I needed them."

"Are you sure about that five-into-each-wing number?" Hookfang queried him. "That's a lot of shots."

"Yes, I'm sure, and I'll prove it when the time comes," the Night Fury answered. "Play!" They watched as the Queen lost her temper and sprayed fire in random directions, hoping to hurt her enemies by the sheer volume of flame she pumped out. It worked, to some extent; Toothless' artificial tail got caught in the fire and was set alight.

"Okay, time's up," Hiccup said, and he did look afraid. "Let's see if this works!" They charged straight at the Queen; Hiccup shouted at her, "Come on! Is that the best you can do?"

"Your time is _up,_ dragon-eater!" Toothless snarled at the same time. He swerved slightly to avoid her jaws, and pushed over into a full-speed dive. She didn't hesitate to follow them.

"He sure didn't look afraid right then," Barf commented.

"It's like I keep telling you - I was mad, not afraid!" Toothless nodded. "I finally had the chance to do what every dragon dreamed of doing - taking out that Queen! And it was working, as far as I could tell. If she hadn't gotten my tail with that desperate fire shot, we would have shredded her wings even worse, and she would have fallen out of the sky whether we led her down or not. But I was starting to lose lateral control, and Hiccup could sense that. It was time to bring down the curtain on this performance!"

Straight down the Night Fury dove, with the Queen right on his tail again. Even in the clouds, she couldn't lose him; his glowing tail gave her a perfect target to follow. There wasn't much left of that tail but the supporting stays now. Hiccup tried to adjust it, and his adjustments had little effect.

"Okay, _now_ you look scared!" Meatlug crowed. "It's in your eyes, in your facial expression... admit it, you were finally afraid!"

"Well, I was justifiably nervous about this turn of events," Toothless admitted, "but afraid? Never!"

"Stay with me, buddy! We're good! Just a little bit longer!" Hiccup's confident tone gave Toothless courage to overcome his... his justifiable nervousness. They continued their headlong earthward plunge. "Hold, Toothless," Hiccup urged him, until he heard that hissing sound from just behind them. "NOW!" The Night Fury spun and fired one more shot straight into the Queen's gaping maw, igniting her gases prematurely. Instead of breathing fire at them, her fire was burning inside her now.

"How did Hiccup know that would work?" Stormfly asked.

"I guess he remembered that little duel between me and the Terrible Terror who was trying to steal my fish," Toothless remarked. "He bet everything that the Queen wouldn't be so fireproof on the inside, either, and he was right."

They shot out the bottom of the cloud layer; the ground loomed larger and larger with each passing moment. "Paws!" Toothless shouted as the Queen spread her wings to slow her descent. "Hookfang, count 'em. Five holes in each wing. All the holes are red and glowing, which means they weren't old injuries. I hit her wings ten times, just like I said I did. That's a total of thirteen shots I fired in that battle. Anyone who says differently isn't paying attention."

Hookfang examined each hole up close. He counted all the claws on both of his hind feet, then counted the claws on one foot again, and one claw on the other foot. "That's thirteen, all right," he admitted. "So where did the humans come up with six?"

"Who knows?" Belch answered. "Maybe they just like even numbers."

"Okay, Toothless," Meatlug said. "Then what _is_ your shot limit?"

"I don't have one," the black dragon said smugly. "My body continuously recharges my fires as I use them. I suppose I could run myself dry if I kept shooting full-strength firebolts, one right after the other. But Hiccup let me fight this battle my way, and I spaced out my shots enough that I was nowhere near running out of fire. I had more fire than she had wingsail surfaces! It was only that lucky hit on my tail that made me stop. Play!"

Toothless desperately spread his wings and got out from in front of the Queen. The huge dragon tried to brake her descent, but her wings were holed in too many places. With a despairing roar of "No-o-o-o!" she dove headfirst into the ground and exploded. The shock wave knocked over several Vikings. Sizzle, Barf, and Hookfang cheered as the fireball rose.

"Again, it's a good thing she didn't hit the Vikings when she crashed," Belch commented, "or the whole battle would have been for nothing."

"I disagree," Barf said. "Even if all the Vikings died, at least the dragons would have been free. That's what matters, right, Toothless?"

"I was fighting for the dragons _and_ the humans," Toothless said firmly. "The humans were Hiccup's people and he cared about them, even though they were no friends of mine. Our fates had become completely intertwined by then. I could no more fight for dragons and not humans than you, Barf, can go for a walk without bringing Belch along."

"There have been times when I've wanted to do that," Barf muttered.

On the flat panel, Toothless was slaloming up the Queen's back, dodging her spines in much the same way he'd dodged the rocks during their first real flight together. But her tail knob rose up in front of them, the last of his burned-out tail fin fell away, and he couldn't control himself in flight anymore. They hit the armored tail at full velocity. Toothless was spun around out of control; Hiccup was thrown from his saddle and knocked unconscious. The Night Fury screamed, "No!" and desperately tried to catch his friend as they plunged together into the Queen's funeral fires.

"Okay, _now_ I was afraid," Toothless said softly.


	14. Chapter 14

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 14

The air around the nest was gray with settling ashes, leftovers from the exploded Queen dragon. The only living thing in sight was Chief Stoick, who was stumbling around desperately, calling, "Hiccup! Hiccup! Son!"

"Why was that scene important?" Sizzle asked the other dragons.

Toothless answered. "Aside from showing that Stoick was really worried about my rider, it also showed that he had completely changed his mind about throwing Hiccup out of the tribe. Any Viking who heard him calling Hiccup 'son' would know that Hiccup had been restored to his place in the chief's family, and also to his rightful status as a Viking. That would affect how they treated him."

Then the chief saw an irregular black lump on the ground ahead. He ran, calling his son's name, and stopped short before he got too close to the Night Fury. He stared in mute shock at the empty saddle and the mangled tail-control rods.

"Toothless, what were you thinking and feeling at that point?" Meatlug asked him.

"Pain," the Night Fury answered. "That was the hardest landing I'd ever made, even worse than the one on the Vikings' island when I lost my tail. I couldn't use my wings to slow down, and my tail was useless, so I pretty much fell straight down at the end. I was dizzy from when my head hit the ground, I was scorched inside and out from flying through the Queen's flames... I was a wreck. If Stoick had wanted to finish me off, I couldn't have stopped him."

"Did you think that's what he was going to do?" Stormfly wondered.

"I wasn't sure," Toothless admitted. "The two of us had a cease-fire when we rescued each other from the water, but I didn't know what he was thinking now. Would he blame me for causing Hiccup's injury? Would he want payback for all the damage I'd done to his village over the years? I just didn't know. It was a really bad moment for me."

Stoick sank to his knees, moaning, "Oh, son. I did this." The rest of the Vikings approached slowly, silently. Astrid burst out of the crowd, expecting to congratulate Hiccup on his great victory, and stopped in shock as she realized he might not have lived to savor his triumph. Several dragons, including Hookfang, Barf and Belch, Stormfly, and Meatlug, raised their heads above the crowd so they could see... and they looked as mournful as the Vikings did.

"Was that the first time any of you ever felt bad about the death of a Viking?" Toothless asked them.

"He set us free," Stormfly explained.

"He used crazy grass on us in the ring instead of a sword," Meatlug added.

"He wouldn't kill me when it was my day to die," Hookfang said.

"Throwing that eel at us wasn't nice, but it was better than a spear," Belch said

"Or an axe," Barf nodded.

The only sound to be heard was Toothless' agonized moan as he rolled onto his side, his wings wrapped tightly around himself. He and Stoick made eye contact for a moment. The chief's eyes watered.

"I'm so sorry," he sobbed.

"And there it was," Toothless said quietly. "Just like with Astrid on that first wild flight, he said the magic words, 'I'm sorry.' He admitted that he was wrong. That's when I knew he wasn't going to kill me. Our truce was still in place. I could count on him to take good care of the only human who really matters."

On the screen, the Night Fury's eyes widened for a moment. He slowly, agonizingly unfurled his wings, revealing Hiccup within, held tightly with all four legs. Stoick gasped and lunged at his motionless son, listened to his chest for a moment, and tearfully exclaimed, "He's alive! _You brought him back alive!"_ The background music swelled, playing the theme that usually related to Toothless.

"Catching him in free-fall and bringing him back safely... that was quite a feat, even for a Night Fury," Hookfang said kindly. "Was that your greatest moment?"

"Up until that moment, I didn't know for sure if my efforts and my sacrifice had been for nothing," Toothless admitted. "I did my best to save him, but I couldn't tell if I'd succeeded. I didn't understand the chief's words, but his tone and his excitement told me everything I needed to know. Hiccup was alive! That last, desperate effort wasn't a waste. Yes, that might have been my crowning moment of awesome."

"More than killing the Queen?" Barf asked.

"What good would it have been to kill the Queen, if Hiccup had died too?" the black dragon replied. "The Vikings would have been happy enough that the war was over. They would have written a saga about Hiccup the Valiant and his last, greatest battle. Stoick would have remarried eventually, and produced another heir. The other dragons would be free at last. But I would have been left with nothing. No more friend, no more flight... nothing. My life would have been over.

"But while I'm talking, I have something I have to ask you, Hookfang. I distinctly saw your rider wipe away a tear when he realized that Hiccup had survived. Was he going soft?"

"Snotlout? Soft? Never!" the Nightmare scoffed. "He was just, uhh, wiping some dust out of his eye, from all that dust that was flying around after the Queen blew up. Yeah, that's what he was doing. It was dust. He'd never go soft."

"Yeah, right," Barf whispered to Belch.

"I just had another thought," Stormfly added. "When Hiccup was supposed to kill Hookfang in the ring, he threw his helmet aside and said, 'I'm not one of them.' When Stoick went to pick up Hiccup, he threw his own helmet aside. Was he saying something by doing that?"

Meatlug shook her huge head. "I think he was saying that he had to get his helmet out of the way if he was going to put his head to Hiccup's chest and listen for a heartbeat without goring his son with the horns."

"Still, it was kind of a 'like father, like son' moment," Stormfly decided. "Their actions were parallel, even if their motives were totally different."

On the screen, the Vikings were clapping and cheering. Some of the dragons joined the cheers, oblivious to the fact that they were surrounded by Viking dragon-fighters. But no one fought any more dragons today. Toothless and Hiccup's cease-fire had spread to the entire tribe and every occupant of the nest.

Toothless finally relaxed, now that he knew Hiccup would be all right. Stoick reached out hesitantly and rested his hammy hand on the dragon's head. "Thank you for saving my son."

"Paws," Toothless said. "Remember when I said there were things about Stoick that the rest of you didn't know? There you are. Even he could change. The valiant dragon-slayer isn't killing a dragon who's helpless in front of him; he's thanking him for a good lifesaving job. Now I had peace with three Vikings, counting Astrid, and the rest would follow where their Alpha led."

Meatlug scowled. "I still don't think that compensated for the way Stoick treated Hiccup in the Mead Hall."

"All I can say," the Night Fury replied, "is that sometimes dragons make mistakes, and sometimes humans make mistakes too. If we judged each other only by the things we've done wrong, who would be left? A very wise human once said, 'He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.' Or, in your case, Meatlug, let him eat the first stone and spit it out as lava. Forgiveness can be hard, but holding a grudge is harder. If Stoick was willing to restart our relationship on a more peaceful basis, then I was willing to give it a try."

"How did you know you could trust him?" Belch asked.

"Because of Hiccup," Toothless said simply. "Both of us wanted what was best for him. It took Stoick a long time to realize how important Hiccup was to him, but he finally got there. We have that in common now. It might be the only thing we have in common, but it's big enough to carry us over the rough spots."

"That's deep," Meatlug said.

"It is," the black dragon nodded. "The things that matter the most are usually very deep. Play!" Just after Stoick said, "Thank you for saving my son," they saw Gobber shrug and add, "Well, ye know, most of 'im."

"Paws!" Hookfang nearly shouted. "Okay, let's settle this, once and for all. Toothless, how did Hiccup's leg get so badly injured that they had to cut it off? There are all kinds of theories. I've heard that it got burned when the two of you fell into the Queen's final fire."

"No, that's not what happened," Meatlug argued. "It got wrecked by scraping on the ground when you made that crash-landing. Isn't that true?"

"No, neither of those things is true," Toothless said in a small voice. "The truth is..." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I did it to him."

 _"You WHAT?!"_ all of the other dragons burst out.

"I had no choice!" he went on, his voice rising sharply. "He was falling out of control, and I didn't have much control, either. I had only one chance to grab him as we tumbled, and I didn't dare miss him, or I knew he'd die. I had to catch him and hold onto him the first time. My claws aren't suited to catching and holding things, like human hands are. I had to use my mouth. And, because I didn't dare risk losing him once I got him, that meant I had to use my teeth. I tried to make it a clean bite, but he was twisting in the air, and... that ruined his leg."

They stared at him in silence for a few seconds.

Sizzle broke the silence. "Was that payback for what he did to your tail?"

"No!" Toothless nearly shouted. "For one thing, I didn't know he was the one who had shot me down; I just learned that today. For another thing, even if I did know, I wouldn't have done that to him on purpose. I don't treat my friends that way. If I'd wanted payback, dragon-style, then I would have let him fall and die."

"True," Hookfang nodded.

"I did it to save him," the black dragon said sadly. "There was no other way. I've replayed that scene in my mind a hundred times, trying to think of something I could have done differently. There was no other way." He took a deep breath. "I did it to save his life. If I had to do it over again, I'd do it the same way. I feel terrible about what I did to him, but if I hadn't done it, he'd be dead."

Meatlug nodded. "So you're going to carry that memory with you for the rest of your days, and it's going to affect how you treat Hiccup?"

"Yes, probably," Toothless said. "That's not something I can easily forget."

The Gronckle went on, "Just like Hiccup is going to carry the memory of shooting you down for the rest of _his_ days, and it's going to affect how he treats you?"

They could hear crickets chirping.

At last, Toothless spoke. "When you're right, you're right. I've got no grounds for bitterness against him. He didn't know what he was doing, and I had no choice in what I did. Through sheer luck and random circumstances, we're even. If I'm not a villain, then neither is he. He never blamed me for what happened to his leg, and I can't be mad at him for what happened to my tail." He glanced back at his tail with its man-made control rods and its bright-red tail fin. "Hiccup always did his best for me, and I've always done my best for him. Nothing is going to change. Play!"

The scene shifted to Hiccup's bed. He lay unconscious, scarred and battered from his ordeal. Toothless crooned and sniffed at him, then backed off and barked, _"Please_ wake up! Don't make me say it again." The boy's eyes opened slightly; the dragon muttered, "Yes! It's about time! You had me _so_ worried."

"Paws again," Stormfly said. "I'm sorry to keep interrupting, but I have another question that people and dragons keep arguing about. How long was Hiccup unconscious?"

"Hmm." Toothless looked thoughtful. "Some people say he was out for weeks, or even months, because that's how long it would have taken the Vikings to make their village dragon-friendly. They had to strengthen the main beams of their roofs to handle our weight when we perched on them, and they had to build that dragon-habitat building from scratch. Other people say he was out for just a few days, because the burns and bruises on his head wouldn't still be there weeks later, and because the Vikings didn't know how to keep someone alive in an extended coma. The best answer I can give is, 'I don't know.' I was totally focused on Hiccup, and on wanting him to be all right. I was indoors for almost all of that time, so I didn't see the rising and the setting of the sun; I have no idea how many days went by. I know I missed a few meals. All I can be sure of is, it was too long. Much too long."

"I guess I can live with that," Stormfly agreed. "Play!" They watched Toothless nuzzle Hiccup more and more forcefully, until the dragon accidentally stepped on Hiccup's midsection, causing him to cry out in pain.

"That sounded just the way he sounded when Astrid dropped her axe on his midsection," Meatlug realized. "He must have been sick of people and dragons hitting him there."

Hiccup realized that he was home, and Toothless was in there with him. What would his father say about a dragon in the house? The dragon was excitedly leaping all over the place, knocking over everything as he went, until Hiccup fought off his pain and fatigue and tried to get out of bed. He pulled back the bedclothes and...

Toothless sensed his change of mood instantly.

"What just happened?" Sizzle asked him.

"Just watch," Toothless said softly.

Hiccup put his feet down on the floor. One of them was not his own. Toothless sniffed the new mechanical device that was supposed to bear half of Hiccup's weight for the rest of his days, and crooned mournfully.

"I'd learned a thing or two about man-made replacements for missing body parts," the Night Fury explained. "I could feel his shock and his sense of loss, and I understood how he felt, because I'd been through the same thing."

"You looked at him, and you saw yourself?" Meatlug concluded.

"Yes," Toothless nodded. "Thank you for summing that up." Meatlug and Stormfly did matching double-takes.

Hiccup breathed hard. He looked into the Night Fury's eyes and saw comfort there. He pulled himself together and made himself stand. He took a hesitant first step, then tried again and fell. Toothless caught him with his head and helped him up again. "Okay. Thanks, bud," Hiccup said as he leaned on the dragon and hobbled toward the door.

"Paws!" Sizzle exclaimed as Toothless' tail waved back and forth.

"Is this another irreverent comment?" Meatlug asked, annoyed.

"No!" the Terror said. "Just look at them! Toothless lost his left tail fin, and now Hiccup lost his left foot. They're a matched pair now."

"He's right," Belch said, surprised.

"I think they always were a matched pair," Barf nodded.

"These pictures are going to make me cry," Toothless sniffled. No one said anything for a few seconds. At last, the black dragon whispered, "Play."

They reached the door. Hiccup let go of his friend, took the last few steps himself, opened the door... and was startled by a Monstrous Nightmare just outside.

"Hey, isn't that how the moving pictures started?" Stormfly asked. "Hiccup was in his house when a Nightmare flamed the door! Have we gone back to the beginning?"

Hiccup slammed the door, hyperventilating again. "Toothless, stay here!"

"Oh, right!" Hookfang chuckled. "Did he think he was going to take me down without any help? Was he trying to protect you from me, Toothless?"

"Yes, that's exactly what he was trying to do," Toothless burst out, surprised. "He was looking out for me... but he wasn't thinking very clearly, I'll admit that. Under the circumstances, I can hardly blame him, though."

Hiccup opened the door again, expecting to see Nightmare fire all over the door. What he saw was Snotlout on Hookfang, leading Fishlegs on Meatlug and the twins on Barf and Belch as they flew across the town. He looked around, unable to believe his eyes. His dragon-hating town had become a dragon's paradise. Nadders roosted on the roofs of houses, Zipplebacks feasted on fish served in what used to be the night-vision torches, and other dragons walked the town's streets with people on their backs. One entire building had been turned into a mini-nest for dragons, with Gronckle tubes on the bottom, perches for other dragons inside, and a communal nest for Terrible Terrors on the roof.

"Okay, it's my turn to ask a question," Barf said. "That music that's playing in the background - it always plays when Hiccup is thinking about Astrid. Now it's playing when all we see is dragons, and Astrid is nowhere in sight. What's up with that?"

"All I have is a guess," Toothless answered. "Astrid was Hiccup's dream come true. So they're using her music in the broader sense of 'Hiccup's other dream come true,' namely, people and dragons living in peace together. I can't say for sure that I'm right, like I usually do, but that's my best guess."

"That makes sense," Barf nodded. "I can live with that."

They watched Hiccup looking around in amazement. He finally said, "I knew it. I'm dead."

"Why would he say that?" Hookfang asked.

"Humans often believe that, after they die, their spirits go to some other place that's a lot better than this place," Stormfly explained. "That was all his mind could come up with; nothing else could explain why we were living with the Vikings now."

"No, but you gave it your best shot," Stoick said as he ran up to him, blinking hard. "So... what do you think?" Then someone shouted, "Hey, look! It's Hiccup!" Everyone began running toward him excitedly.

"So now they all think he's more than Hiccup the Useless?" Belch wondered.

"They all saw him bring down the Queen," Toothless answered, "and they saw him riding on me to do it. It's hard to argue with facts that are right before your eyes."

"Even with stubbornness issues?" Hookfang asked.

"When the chief says his son is a hero, then the stubbornness issues have to move over," Meatlug said sagely. "Even if you don't believe your own eyes, you'd be a fool to contradict your Alpha."

Hiccup gazed around, stunned by the adulation from the village that used to resent his existence. Spitelout, the chief's brother and partner in dragon-hating, even had a Terrible Terror perched on his shoulder. "He looks like a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder," Sizzle smirked.

"I'm sure you 'arrr' right," Toothless said with a totally straight face. Stormfly rolled her eyes.

"Turns out, all we needed was a little more of... _this,"_ Stoick smiled.

"You just gestured to all of me," Hiccup answered, trying to take it all in. That was Gobber's cue to announce that he'd made Hiccup's artificial leg. Hiccup was commenting on it when Astrid came up from behind him and hit him in the arm.

All the dragons snarled at her. "Astrid, grow up!" Stormfly growled. "The poor guy just woke up out of a coma! He just found out that he lost his leg! I know you're a rough, tough Viking, but can't you show a _little_ compassion?"

"Why didn't he hit her back?" Hookfang demanded.

"Human males aren't supposed to hit the females," Belch explained. "Most of the time, the females are smaller and weaker than the males, so it makes sense."

"She wasn't weaker than Hiccup!" Hookfang observed.

"In that case," Barf finished, "he didn't hit her because he didn't want to start a fight he couldn't win. That makes sense, too."

 _"That's_ for scaring me," Astrid said threateningly.

"Oh, like that was _his_ fault?" Toothless snapped. "Stormfly, has she changed at all since this happened? Because if she hasn't, then I'm going to tell her how I feel about her, and I'm going to make that first roar at Hiccup sound like a cat's purr by comparison!"

"Yes, she's changed... a little," Stormfly said. "The last time she hit him was when he was looking at another girl... somebody named Heather, I think. Aside from that, I think she's showing him a little more respect now. Please don't roar at her. That's my job anyway."

"Fine," Toothless shrugged. "I'll let her go for your sake. But if she _ever_ pulls another stunt like that... I'll put her lights out!"

"No, you won't," the Nadder shot back, "because if she ever pulls another stunt like that, _I'll_ put her lights out! After everything Hiccup did for her, for her tribe, and for us, he definitely deserves better treatment than that!"

Hiccup was flabbergasted. "Wh- what? Is it always going to be this way? Because -" She cut him off with a kiss that was a lot more than just a peck on the cheek. Hookfang reached down with a wingtip and blocked Sizzle's view of the kiss. The Vikings were gasping with surprise. "...I could get used to it," Hiccup finished, looking blissed-out and dazed.

"Did she rub his 'D' spot?" Meatlug wondered.

"She sure did _something_ he liked," Barf smirked.

"So why doesn't she do that to him all the time?" Toothless asked Stormfly. "He obviously liked it, although I can't see the appeal. If two dragons touched muzzles like that, it would mean somebody was about to get bitten."

"Humans play by their own rules," Meatlug observed.

"Tell me about it!" the Night Fury burst out.

"I don't know why she doesn't do it all the time," Stormfly answered him. "It looks like she enjoyed it, too. I'll admit, I don't get it. Maybe she didn't _want_ him to get used to it for some reason."

Gobber ruined the moment by handing Hiccup a bundle that had to be a new riding rig for Toothless. That was Toothless' cue to burst out of the house, prompting shouts of, "Night Fury! Get down!"

"Oh, give it a rest!" Toothless snapped at the image. "I just helped save your chief's son and your whole tribe! I've been living in your chief's house for... days, weeks, however long it was. You've got other dragons walking peacefully in your streets! Do you really think I'm still a deadly threat?"

"Old habits die hard, I guess," Belch commented.

"You know... _those_ issues?" Barf added with a wink.

Meatlug considered the scene. "They got used to you, eventually. Maybe they adjusted to the other dragons more quickly because they already knew what we look like. We were more familiar to them. You were the only one of your kind that they'd ever seen, so you were still strange to them."

"Maybe," Toothless nodded slowly. On the screen, he jumped on several Vikings who didn't get out of the way fast enough, and snorted, "We've been on the ground for too long, Hiccup! Let's fly!"

"He just woke up out of a coma," Meatlug reminded him. "Was he really alert enough to go flying?"

"A little fresh air and some altitude will make anyone feel better," Toothless said matter-of-factly. "I think that's as true of humans as it is of us. Hiccup certainly didn't hold back." They watched the two of them prepare for flight, testing the new stirrup that was made for Hiccup's mechanical foot and the new red-and-white tail fin.

"Where did that stuff come from?" Sizzle asked. "I thought it all got wrecked when you crash-landed, Toothless."

"Gobber must have made it," the black dragon said.

"But how did he know how to make it?" the Terror persisted.

"Are you kidding?" Stormfly answered. "Hiccup's desk was _covered_ with drawings of how he made the first flying rig. Gobber just copied what he saw, with a few changes to accommodate Hiccup's new leg. It didn't take any imagination or creativity; Hiccup already took care of that part."

"I think that part is what he's best at," Meatlug nodded.

Hiccup glanced at Astrid on Stormfly; that pair were also eager to take to the skies. He looked around at his village, which was filled with dragons walking, flying, or sleeping, but not attacking.

"This is Berk," he began.

"Is he still complaining about his nest?" Barf wondered.

"His voice sounds more up-beat than he did at the beginning," Hookfang noticed.

"It snows nine months of the year, and hails the other three."

"Yup, he's still complaining," Belch nodded, "but he doesn't sound so depressed about it now."

Toothless and Stormfly sprang into the air. The Nadder quickly took the lead.

"I thought Night Furies were the fastest dragons!" Meatlug exclaimed.

"I got a slow start because I'd been on the ground for ages, watching Hiccup, instead of flying," Toothless explained. "She didn't stay in the lead for long."

"That's because you cheated!" Stormfly scolded him.

"Hey, you could have made the same move I did," the Night Fury shrugged. "It's not my fault that you didn't think of it."

"Any food that grows here is tough and tasteless," Hiccup went on, as the Night Fury and the Nadder raced across the village. "The people that grow here are even more so."

"No argument," Hookfang nodded.

"No argument here, either," Belch agreed.

"Well, maybe not _all_ of them," Meatlug disagreed.

"He's speaking in general terms," Toothless explained. "Now, watch this!" They watched as he jumped on a Viking ramp and cut inside Stormfly to take the lead.

"I still say you cheated," Stormfly muttered.

"All's fair in love, war, and dragon racing," Toothless said archly.

"The only upsides are the pets," Hiccup went on.

"Oh, he's still calling us pests?" Hookfang burst out.

"No, not pests, pets!" Stormfly corrected him.

"We aren't pets, either!" Meatlug objected. "We're friends!"

"I think he's deliberately trying to sound like he did at the beginning," Toothless realized. "He never called me a pet, or treated me like one. He knows better. it's just a literary device to tie the end of the story back to the beginning."

"So it's almost over?" Sizzle asked.

"I think so," the Night Fury nodded.

"Darn it," the little dragon said. "It got good at the end."

Hiccup continued to speak as the other dragons caught up with them, turning the racing pair into a V-formation. "While other places have ponies or parrots, we have... _dragons!"_ Toothless broke formation and soared to the clouds, roaring, "We win! You'll never catch us!"

"Don't you mean, 'I win! You'll never catch me?' " asked Barf.

"No, he means 'we,' " Stormfly answered for him. "The two are one, probably closer than many mated pairs. Now we all know why." Toothless nodded.

The symbols that meant "How to Train Your Dragon" appeared on the screen. Then a series of pictures of hand-drawn dragons began flashing across the screen, accompanied by runes that must be the names of humans. The display was over.

Now, what did it all mean?

 **o**

 _A/N_  
 _Shortly after posting this chapter, the story passed the 10,000-view mark. It's been a long time since I wrote a story that gained that much traction that fast. To all the readers who did all that reading, thank you._


	15. Chapter 15

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 15

The dragons kept their eyes glued to the flat panel long after the actual events of their recent past had ended. They didn't understand the concept of "end credits," and they didn't recognize the names of the hundreds of humans who had helped to create the images they had just watched. They just wanted to see the hand-drawn pictures of the dragons, listen to the unfamiliar music, and give themselves time to process what they'd seen.

At last, the images stopped. The flat panel went dark and quiet. The dragons blinked, almost in unison, then stepped back and looked at each other. Each of them waited for someone else to speak first.

Stormfly finally broke the ice. "It wasn't all about my rider, but I think I understand her better now."

"Do you understand why she kept hitting Hiccup?" Meatlug asked pointedly.

"No, I don't," the Nadder admitted, "but I can see why she got frustrated with Hiccup in the beginning. She changed a lot - maybe not as much as Hiccup did, but enough that I don't feel like I should tail-smack her for being insensitive."

"Even for when she hit him at the end of the pictures and said, _'That's_ for scaring me?' " the Gronckle pressed her.

"Okay, that was uncalled for," Stormfly said, "but it happened months ago. If I tail-smack her for that now, she won't have any idea why I did it."

"That's probably true," Toothless nodded. "When you're training humans, I think you have to catch them in the act or they'll never learn."

"Do you think she really likes Hiccup now?" Belch wondered.

"Oh, there's no question of that," Stormfly nodded vigorously. "She just had to work on some better ways to show it, and I think she's making good progress."

"I understand my rider better, too," Hookfang nodded. "I still think he's a thoughtless hornhead with delusions of alpha-hood, but he's brave and he cares about people a little, even though he won't admit it."

"You didn't know that about him already?" Toothless wondered.

"I knew about the 'brave' part," the Nightmare said, "and I definitely knew about the 'thoughtless hornhead' part. That mess he caused by stealing the Changewing eggs... that proved it, if anyone had any doubts. Still, it's good to know that, underneath his tough Viking exterior, there's a human heart. That means that, maybe, someday, he might learn what I'm trying to tell him when I do the opposite of what he tells me."

"I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for _that_ to happen, if I were you," Barf muttered. "Remember those stubbornness issues? He should get a merit badge for Stubbornness."

"Well, what about you two?" Hookfang demanded. "Do you understand Ruffnut and Tuffnut any better now?"

The two heads of the Zippleback looked at each other blankly for a few seconds. Then they both said, "Nope."

"We thought they were crazy before," Barf continued, "and now we know we were completely right."

"What they are on the outside is what they are on the inside," Belch nodded. "They don't hide any secrets. They drive each other crazy sometimes -"

"Just like they drive _us_ crazy sometimes!" Barf cut in.

"...but they're inseparable and they look out for each other," his other head finished. "No surprises there. Still, it's good to know that we were right about them all along. If we'd been guessing wrong about them, that really would make us look foolish."

"How about you, Meatlug?" Stormfly asked.

"Oh, I learned a few things about Fishlegs that I didn't know," she answered airily, "but I think you're all asking the wrong question. These pictures weren't about us and our riders. They were about Hiccup and Toothless. I think we all knew Toothless pretty well, and it's a safe bet that we know him even better now. The question we should be asking is, 'What did we learn about Hiccup?' "

"She's right," Hookfang said, which surprised Stormfly considerably. "But I don't know if I want to go first. I'm still putting my thoughts together. Do you want to go first, Toothless?"

"I think I've got a lot more thoughts to put together than you do," the Night Fury said. "How about if we go around and take turns saying the thing that impressed us the most about Hiccup, based on what we just saw?" All the dragons nodded.

"But who goes first?" Meatlug asked.

Barf, Belch, and Hookfang all glared down at Sizzle.

"Why me?" he asked plaintively.

"Somebody has to do it," Hookfang said, "and the rest of us chose you."

"Fine," the little dragon snapped. "What impressed me most about Hiccup? I think it was the parts of that 'Forbidden Friendship' scene when he walked right up to a Night Fury and wasn't afraid. The two of you wound up trusting each other, but he acted like he trusted you long before you returned the favor. You could have killed him sixty different ways, and he knew it, but he acted friendly anyway."

"Sixty? You flatter me," Toothless nodded, "but it _was_ pretty amazing that he acted so fearless toward me. I remember how he screamed and ran away from that Nightmare at the very beginning -"

"Or the way he screamed and ran away from me, that first time in the training ring!" Meatlug threw in.

"Yeah, he did a lot of screaming and running when he started," the black dragon said. "Some of it made sense; I think any human would scream and run if he was locked into the training ring with an angry Nightmare like Hookfang -"

"You're darned right they would!" Hookfang interjected.

"But still, Hiccup had courage inside," Toothless went on. "He just had to find the right place to let it show. He picked a cove where a hungry, frustrated Night Fury was imprisoned... and, when you think about it, that's not so different from being locked into the training ring with an angry Nightmare. Somehow, he just knew that I wasn't killing anyone that day. How he knew that, I still don't know."

"Maybe he didn't know for sure," Stormfly suggested. "Maybe he just figured out that you're intelligent, and he assumed, or hoped, that an intelligent being won't kill without a good reason. Maybe he thought that would keep him safe."

"He had no idea how intelligent I am when that scene started," Toothless objected.

"Those Vikings claim to be intelligent, and they killed a lot of _us_ for no good reason," Belch disagreed.

"And there were some dragons who killed humans for the fun of it, too," Barf nodded.

"Wait a second," Toothless exclaimed. "Are you saying that, if Hiccup had gone into the cove with any dragon except a Night Fury, you think he'd be dead?"

"That sounds like a fair conclusion," Hookfang agreed. "I probably would have killed him if I'd been there instead of you. I had no idea he was special. And then I would have eaten his fish and not shared it with anyone."

"You were willing to be peaceful with him in the training ring," Meatlug noted.

"Hiccup initiated that," the Nightmare said firmly. "I came out flaming, if you recall. I expected a fight to the death, and I was ready to give them one. It was Hiccup who acted peaceful; that's the only reason I acted peaceful in return. He hadn't learned how to be peaceful with dragons when that scene in the cove happened. In fact, that was the beginning of his education in how to get along with dragons. Toothless was a much more patient, tolerant teacher than I ever would have been. Would you have killed him, Stormfly?"

"I'm... not sure," she admitted. "If he'd pulled his knife on me, the way he drew it on Toothless, I probably would have thrown my spines first and asked questions later. If he'd held the fish out to me with one hand, I think I would have snapped at it, spat his hand out, and then swallowed the fish. No matter how he worked it, he probably would have suffered for it. That's how it was with dragons and humans at the time. How about you, Meatlug? Would you have flamed him?"

Meatlug pondered. "I probably wouldn't have flamed him, but that's only because there weren't many rocks in that cove for me to eat. Like you said, I probably would have taken his hand off if he gave me the chance. The idea of a peaceful human had never occurred to me at that time."

"We would have chased him all over that cove with explosions," Barf decided, "and if he got blown up or blackened around the edges, who cares? It would have been nothing but a bit of fun."

"Even if we killed him, so what?" Belch added. "He was just another human, as far as we could tell. There were plenty more where he came from. We couldn't think of any reason to show him mercy, even if he _did_ feed us a fish."

Barf nodded. "If he tried to feed both of us with just one fish, I think that would have made us mad."

Belch shook his head. "He's not stupid. If he knew he was going to meet a two-headed dragon in the cove, he would have brought two fish, one for each of us."

"He might have assumed that we needed only one fish between us," Barf argued, "seeing how we share the same stomach."

"Eventually, he _did_ offer us one fish between us," Belch said with distaste, "and that was an _eel!_ No, thank you!" Barf shivered at the memory; the shiver went down his neck to their shared body and back up Belch's neck, so they both shivered.

"That's all guesswork," Toothless cut them off. "The fact is that he met _me_ there, and I chose not to kill him. At first, it was because I was curious about him. The bond between us was forming so gradually that I wasn't aware of it until it had fully formed, and after that, there was no question of me killing him. But until that point, he showed extraordinary courage by walking up to me without a weapon and trying to touch me. Barf, Belch, while you're talking, what did you get out of the moving pictures, as far as Hiccup is concerned?"

"Well, just speaking for me," Barf began, "I was kind of stunned by all the places where our future hung in the balance because of one decision that Hiccup made, or one thing that he did. If any one of those events had turned out differently, then we'd still be slaves of the Queen, waging a useless war against the humans."

"Yeah, there were a lot of turning points like those," Belch nodded. "It's as if some kind of unavoidable destiny was playing out in his life, because some of those events were really improbable. That Nightmare that chased Hiccup when the moving pictures started should have killed him; Meatlug and Stormfly both had good, clean shots at him in the training ring, and so did we, for a few seconds at least... and yet, not one of us ever laid a claw on him. The Queen couldn't hurt him, either, until after she was dead. He might be the luckiest Viking who ever lived."

"Huh?" Sizzle asked. "He lost half of his leg, he got kicked out of his own tribe, he never won a single fight against a dragon, and you call him 'lucky?' How do you figure that?"

Meatlug spoke before the Zippleback could answer. "It's because he walked away from all of those disasters, and quite a few others, but he was never defeated by any of them. That's what impressed me the most about Hiccup - his inner strength. Maybe it was stubbornness issues; maybe he just never knew when he was beaten; but he never gave up and he never gave in, no matter who was against him. Basically, he stood up against his own father, his friends, his tribe, his culture and traditions, and every one of us dragons, and he said, 'You're all wrong.' And then he proved it, one step at a time, until we all agreed with him. Except for the Queen, and she paid the price for trying to stop an irresistable force like Hiccup."

"I never thought about it that way," Stormfly mused, "but I can see your point. Out of all those enemies, who came around first?"

"Obviously, Toothless did," the Gronckle said. "Toothless, when did you realize that Hiccup was unstoppable?"

"Well," the Night Fury began, "I always sensed that he was different."

"So did his father, and a lot of good _that_ did him!" Belch said snidely.

Toothless ignored him. "At first, he was a curiosity; then he became my sole source of food; then he became my best hope for getting into the air again. It was at the end of that wild flight through the rocks that he became someone whom I could trust with my life. When did I think he was unstoppable? I'm not sure. But I must have come to that conclusion somewhere, because when I dragged Stoick out of the water, my first thought was to attack and kill the Queen. I'd never even dreamed of doing anything like that before; I was as afraid of her as the rest of you. But with Hiccup riding me, that made me feel unstoppable, so I guess I thought of him as unstoppable, too. What about the rest of you?"

"I think I can speak for all of us," Meatlug said, "when I say we figured it out in the training ring, when he let us all out without carrying any weapons. We were all accustomed to fighting humans whenever we saw one, but in a few short minutes, he had all of us eating out of his hand, figuratively speaking. He stopped the fighting and got all of us to accept a human rider, just because he said so, and we couldn't even understand what he said! I didn't think it consciously, but somewhere in my head, there was something along the lines of, 'This human can do anything.' I was even willing to go up against the Queen if he said it was a good idea. Would you agree?" The other dragons nodded.

"Toothless, do you really think Hiccup is unstoppable?" Hookfang asked him.

"Not literally, no," the black dragon admitted, "but whenever something is really important to him, he refuses to take 'no' for an answer. Sometimes that's just as good."

"Like when you tried to tell him it was a bad idea to keep a baby Typhoomerang?" Barf smirked.

"Okay, that's the downside of his determination," Toothless shrugged. "I never said he was perfect, just amazing and awesome."

"You might be a little bit biased," Meatlug smiled.

"A little," he admitted. "But I don't hear any of you disagreeing with me, so it doesn't matter if I'm biased toward him, as long as I'm right. Hookfang? How about you?"

"I'm never biased," the Nightmare said flatly. "I always tell it like it is."

"No! I mean what did you learn about Hiccup?" Toothless sputtered.

"Oh, him? Well, he did a lot of screaming and running away at the beginning, but he turned out to be really brave. I have to respect that."

"You mean, by him facing you in the ring and laying his weapons down?" Stormfly asked.

"Yeah, that, but that wasn't even the bravest thing he ever did. The way I see it, his bravest deed was flying on a dragon's back for the first time. Other Vikings had fought dragons one-on-one before, so he had plenty of role models for that mess in the ring. But riding Toothless in the sky? No human _ever_ did _anything_ like that before! He had no idea what to do, or what it would feel like, or if he'd be afraid of heights, or anything! For us, the sky's the limit, but for him, it was totally uncharted territory. That took guts."

"He probably tried it because he trusted Toothless to keep him safe," Meatlug suggested.

"Maybe," Hookfang nodded, "but it still took courage to try something completely new and potentially dangerous like that. Kind of the way it took courage for me to trust him in the ring the first time, when I thought fighting was all that humans were good for. That was uncharted territory, too."

"Are you comparing yourself to Hiccup?" Stormfly asked pointedly.

"No, I'm just saying I kind of knew how he felt," Hookfang said. "I've been flying all my life, I've dove in the water lots of times, and I always rest on land and in caves. I've been to every kind of place there is; I can't imagine a place where I've never gone before. That's what Hiccup did when he flew with Toothless the first time. He was brave in lots of other ways, too. Fighting the Queen... wow. I hated her like every dragon hated her, but the idea of taking a shot at her never crossed my mind - she was just too _big!_ Hiccup wasn't afraid of her, though."

"It probably helped that he could ride a Night Fury," Belch threw in. "Just him, on foot, against the Queen... I bet he wouldn't have been so brave."

"I'll bet you're wrong," the Nightmare shot back. "You saw how determined he can be! Maybe he wouldn't have run right at her, waving his little dagger and shouting, 'Death to tyrants!' but he would have thought of _some_ way of taking her down. Maybe he would have built a new mild-calibration-error machine or something. Who knows? The fact is, he did it."

Sizzle waved his wings for attention. "Would you have let Hiccup ride _you_ against the Queen, Hookfang?"

"Hmmm. Good question." Hookfang thought about it. "If I knew then what I know now, then maybe. I'm seeing Hiccup in a different light now. At the time, he was just a nice human who let me out of my cell and didn't bonk me on the head. I had no idea what he was really capable of doing. So, if Toothless hadn't been there and Hiccup had tried to ride me instead, I probably would have high-tailed it out of there with him and let the other Vikings fend for themselves. I would have tried to keep the nice human safe... and keep myself safe at the same time. Fight the Queen with him? No way! I think the rest of you would have done the same thing. Am I right?" The other dragons nodded.

Stormfly nodded. "So, once again, it comes down to that one-in-a-million combination of Hiccup and Toothless who made the difference. No one else could have done it, either on the dragons' side or on the humans' side."

After a brief silence, Meatlug reminded her, "It's your turn, Stormfly."

"Oh, yes. What impresses me the most about Hiccup, now that I know the whole story? It's how flexible he could be in his thinking. He could be as stubborn as any Viking, but he didn't let that get in his way when he needed a new idea. Just the idea of making friends with a dragon was something that probably never occurred to any other Viking. Making a new tail for him, and going through all those different ways to control it until he found something that worked... that took some wild thinking, too. That entire adventure mostly consisted of stuff happening, and Hiccup making up solutions as he went along. His battle plan against the Queen was his masterpiece. He came up with it on the fly -"

"Literally!" Toothless chuckled.

"Yes, thank you," the Nadder groaned. "Anyway, he had no time to think things over; the action was happening too fast. He made it up, and then he made it happen, and it worked just like he thought it would."

"Wasn't he always making up new stuff?" Hookfang asked.

"Yes, but he got no respect for it," Stormfly replied. "Sometimes, his ideas didn't work; sometimes they would have worked if he'd had the chance to make a few improvements, but the other Vikings wouldn't give him a chance. Toothless, you talked about how he almost drowned you a few times while your flight rig was in the 'experimental' phase. You could say your tail had some mild calibration errors when you started. But you gave him the time and the chances to make it better, and now... here you are. Why didn't you stop the experiments when they failed the first time, like the Vikings would have done?"

"It's because I was so desperate to fly again," Toothless responded readily. "I was willing to try just about anything, even entrust myself to a human who couldn't fly! And there was such a confidence about him. He somehow knew that he'd succeed at getting us off the ground if he kept on trying and didn't give up. Some of those failures were pretty disheartening, but neither of us was willing to quit. I needed to fly more than anything else, and he..." His voice trailed off.

"That raises a really good question, which no one else has asked yet." Meatlug said. "It might be the most important question we can ask, because it goes to the heart of everything else that happened. Why did Hiccup work so hard to get you flying again, knowing that you were his tribe's worst enemy?"

Toothless didn't have a ready answer.


	16. Chapter 16

**How to View Your Dragons** Chapter 16

Meatlug had just asked Toothless, "Why did Hiccup work so hard to get you flying again, knowing that you were his tribe's worst enemy?"

"Good question," Stormfly said when Toothless didn't answer right away. "I think that goes to the heart of this entire adventure. Toothless, Hiccup could have kept you alive forever in that cove; he could have brought you fish every day or two, and no one would have known you were there. He didn't have to make you a tail and learn to fly with you, and risk being discovered by the other Vikings. You still could have been friends, and you never could have known that he even had the ability to make an artificial dragon's tail. Why did he risk everything to get you back into the air?"

"Especially," Sizzle added, "when getting you back in the air meant you could destroy his village some more?"

"I don't think he was worried about that last part," Toothless finally said. "I couldn't fly without his help, so if he didn't want me flaming his village, then he could have kept me from flying anywhere near it. My human-fighting days were over, no matter what happened. But I think you're mistaken in one area, Stormfly, and that's the key to answering that question.

"The Vikings would have found me eventually. Astrid found the cove, and the others could have followed Hiccup, too. Somebody was bound to get curious about where the chief's son disappeared to every day. And once they found me..." He paused and swallowed hard. "Game over. As long as I was stuck in that cove, my days were numbered. Hiccup realized that when he heard Gobber say, 'A downed dragon is a dead dragon.' Don't you remember how concerned he looked when he heard that proverb? That's your answer. He worked so hard to get me back in the air because, long-term, that was the only way to keep me alive."

Meatlug nodded. "So he did it all for you."

"At the end of the story, that's all he ever did," the Night Fury said quietly. "He offered me everything he was, everything he could do, and everything he might ever be. All I could offer him in return..."

"...was everything you were, everything you could do, and everything you might ever be," Meatlug finished.

"Thank you for summing that up," Toothless said. The other dragons smiled slightly, but none laughed.

"But why would he do that for a dragon?" Hookfang wondered. "I mean, you're very close now, but you were enemies at the start. When you took that first flight with his first attempt at a tail, you did your best to get rid of him. Why was he so determined to do something nice for you?"

"Was it guilt over ruining your real tail?" Meatlug asked.

"No, I think we've already beaten that issue into the ground," Toothless replied. "The bottom-line reason is that he looked at me and saw himself. The bond between us formed on his side long before it formed on my side. Because he was so neglected and abused by his own people, his heart was empty and desperately looking for someone to fill it. He needed a friend, and I came along at just the right time, even though I wasn't a very good friend at the very beginning. Still, I didn't hate him; I didn't reject him; I showed him mercy, and then kindness. Those were all things that most of us take for granted, but for Hiccup, they were precious gifts that he'd never known before. They had a huge impact on the way he thought about me. The efforts that he put into keeping my existence a secret, and making my new tail, and getting me back in the air, weren't about guilt. They were about gratitude."

After a long silence, Stormfly said, "I think I get it now," and all the others nodded in agreement.

"So... what happens next?" Barf wondered.

"Now that we understand our riders better," Belch added, "what are we going to do about it?"

"I'd share half of an extra-tasty fish with my rider," Meatlug thought out loud, "but I know he doesn't like it. Maybe I'll give his toes an extra lick in the morning."

 _"EWW!"_ the other dragons chorused.

"Well, why not?" the Gronckle said defensively. "He bathes once a week, just like the other Vikings. His feet aren't that dirty, and they have a nice salty aftertaste."

"I'll get _my_ salt from the fish I eat, thank you very much," Hookfang said firmly.

"Likewise," Stormfly added. "But now that I understand more about Hiccup, one thing is going to change. The next time Astrid hits him, I'm going to give her a firm warning." She snarled viciously. "Like that. Nobody is allowed to hit Hiccup anymore, not even her! After all the things he's done for us, we owe him too much."

"I'm with you there," Hookfang nodded. "If my rider is on my neck and he gives Hiccup a hard time, I'll give him such a shaking, his teeth will rattle!"

"And his brains!" Belch chortled.

"That won't take much shaking," Barf smirked.

"What about you two?" Meatlug asked the Zippleback.

"Our riders don't bother Hiccup that much," Belch began.

"Pranking Hiccup is too easy for them, I think," Barf nodded. "He's too easygoing and too trusting. Making trouble for him isn't enough of a challenge for professional-level trouble-makers like them."

"But if they get bored and try to make trouble for him anyway," Belch finished in a threatening tone, "they'll have to get through us first!"

"Yeah!" Barf agreed. "We can do pranks, too!"

Belch suddenly turned to face his other head. "Hey! Do you think we should?"

"Oh, yeah!" Barf grinned. "Maybe a couple of snorts of green gas through the window of their house... not enough to do any harm, just enough to make them run out in a panic."

"Let's do it!" Belch nodded. "It'll be fun!" The Zippleback rambled off toward Ruffnut and Tuffnut's house, their tails lashing back and forth behind them.

"Uh-oh," Sizzle said as he watched them go. "Did their riders do anything to deserve that?"

"Probably," Stormfly nodded.

"I don't think 'deserving it' has anything to do with it," Toothless shrugged.

"So they might do it to me next?" the Terror quavered.

"With that pair, there's no predicting," the Night Fury said. "Guessing what they'll do next is like throwing a fish in the air and guessing which side it will land on."

"Worse," Stormfly disagreed. "A fish has only two or three sides that it can land on, depending on the fish. There's no limit to the mischief those two can dream up. And when their riders get into the act... all bets are off."

"Then maybe I should make myself scarce while they're in a trouble-making mood," Sizzle decided. "I don't have a rider and I don't do much of anything with Hiccup, so I didn't really learn much from the pictures. Except now I know why the war is over." He glanced toward Toothless. "And I also know why you give me a dirty look whenever I come near you while you're eating. I won't steal your fish like my relative did, I promise!"

"We'll see," Toothless said, and gave him a dirty look. Sizzle took that as his cue to fly away and disappear.

Hookfang cocked his head. "I think I hear my rider calling me," he explained. "He probably wants to go flying."

"Didn't you already fly with him this morning?" Stormfly asked him.

"Yes, but there's no such thing as 'too much flying,' even with that doofus on my back. I'd better go see what he wants. If I keep him waiting, he's liable to try and wrench my horns off my head." Hookfang sprang into the air and flapped heavily away.

"Now it's just the three of us," Toothless said as he watched the Nightmare go. "I guess we'll all have to go back to 'business as usual' now. The strange man is going to want his flat panel and his hut back."

"Would you want to see the moving pictures again?" Meatlug asked him.

"Umm... I'm not sure," the black dragon admitted. "It was really intense, seeing those scenes again, and learning what was going on when I wasn't around. Some of it was good, and some of it was bad. I'm definitely not sorry I saw it, but to see it again? I'm not sure."

"I'd like to see it again if I could," Stormfly said firmly. "It wasn't so intense for me, because I wasn't in the middle of it, and I learned quite a bit."

"Same here," the Gronckle nodded, "but I can understand why you feel that way, Toothless. After all, your rider _was_ in the middle of just about all of it, and he went through a lot. Some of it was pretty bad."

"I think that might be the most amazing part of the story," Toothless said intensely, "and that's also the most important thing I learned about Hiccup from these moving pictures. He really was in the middle of it all! He initiated almost everything that happened, or if he didn't initiate it, he tried to take control of it. This tiny un-Viking was scorned by his entire tribe, and he was just an elusive target to us dragons; but through creativity, passion, and sheer stubbornness, he remade both his tribe and our nest into his image. We wanted to have all the food we needed; the Vikings wanted to live in peace; and we both thought that meant relentlessly fighting each other. He changed both our societies! Now we have all the food we need, the Vikings have peace, and we did it his way instead of our own way. All of those rough, tough Viking warriors couldn't make it happen. It took a Hiccup. It took my rider."

"You helped him a lot, you know," Stormfly observed.

"Yes, I know I did," Toothless nodded, "but I just went along for the ride, just like the rest of you. I couldn't have done it alone, and I couldn't have done it with any other human. It was all about Hiccup."

They noticed the strange man striding out of the woods toward them, whistling an energetic tune of some kind (they didn't recognize "Through the Fire and Flames" by Dragonforce). "I think he's back to collect his stuff," Meatlug said. "It's time for us to go." They nodded and went their separate ways.

Meatlug wasted no time finding Fishlegs, who was bringing water in buckets from the town well to his house. She ran up to him and laid a soggy, slurpy kiss on his face. "You're not perfect," she told him as he wiped his face, "but you're a wonderful human and I'm glad you're my rider." But, of course, he couldn't understand her.

Stormfly went out fishing first. She could eat her fill from the fish feeding trays anytime she wanted, but she liked to keep her fishing skills sharp, just in case. After she'd eaten her fill, she hunted for Astrid and found her coming out of the woods after a vigorous axe-throwing session. The Nadder coughed twice and laid a fine redfish at her rider's feet.

"Thank you, Stormfly," Astrid said, puzzled, "but what's this for?"

 _"That's_ for being a friendly human who was willing to change," Stormfly said. "Now don't hit Hiccup anymore!" Of course, Astrid couldn't understand her.

Toothless couldn't fly to find Hiccup, but he knew exactly where to look for him, and he wasted no time getting there. Hiccup was almost done hammering out the brackets for a rudder for a new Viking longship. Toothless ran up to him in the forge, rubbed his head against his rider, and let out a long, happy croon.

"I'm glad to see you too, bud, but what's this about?" Hiccup wondered. He couldn't comprehend dragon speech any better than the others, unfortunately.

So he didn't understand that Toothless had just said, "You're a crazy, brave, stubborn, creative, unpredictable, one-of-a-kind human! Don't ever change, my friend. I love you."

 _THE END_

 **o**

 _A/N  
As I mentioned to several reviewers, the idea for this story hit me while I was driving to work. I got so excited at the thought, I was bouncing up and down in my seat and laughing out loud. I'm glad there weren't any other cars on the road nearby, or I might have hit them; and I'm glad there weren't any pedestrians watching me, or they would have thought I'd lost my mind._

 _I've gotten multiple requests to do something similar with "Gift of the Night Fury" and/or the second movie. I'm putting some ideas together; we'll see what happens._


End file.
